The Need to Wear Flowers
by youbstrds
Summary: After his coming out, Stan's parents think life would be safest for their son in San Francisco. But how will he adjust? Stan/Kyle
1. Chapter 1

"Mom, dad, I have something to tell you," said Stan. He felt light, untouchable, and ever so slightly drunk. Visiting Kenny's before making the announcement had surely been the right thing to do. He had been putting this off for months, and only now did he feel the courage to utter his next words. "I'm gay."

Randy spat out his beer. "You mean you're homosexual?" he gasped. "You want to do it with guys?"

"That would be what I mean," said Stan, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"This is terrible!"

"Randy! Stan has a right to be whatever he is!" Sharon snapped. She smiled gently at her son. "Stan, your father and I love you, no matter what."

"But this town won't understand that! He'll be bullied! Ostracised! He won't have a date to the senior prom! You know it's true!"

"Oh, no, no, no," Stan groaned. "Dad, you're talking crap." His mom did not agree. Her hands flew to her face as she gasped.

"You're right! But what can we do?"

"We need someplace accepting. Somewhere he will fit in...but where is gay enough?" Stan put his head in his hands. He suddenly needed another drink.

"Somewhere gay..."

"I don't want to move!" Stan yelled through his hands.

"This isn't about what you want, Stanley. It's about what you need."

"I need to be here. With my friends."

"Your friends?" Randy laughed bitterly. "As soon as you tell them your little secret, they'll be kicking your ass every chance they get. They'll call you every foul name under the sun."

"San Francisco!" said Sharon. They looked at her. "That's gay enough! And so liberal and accepting!"

"Great! Pack your stuff, Stan, we're going to San Francisco!" This caused Stan to finally look up again in horror.

"What? No! Kyle moved there and he said it was even shittier than here!"

"Kyle isn't gay! What does he know about your needs?" asked Randy.

"He knows when something's shit!"

"That's enough, Stanley!" said Sharon. "Go pack! We have a lot to do."

Stan went upstairs and into his bedroom, but it wasn't to pack. He climbed out of the window and set off for Kyle's. If he was being dragged away to another state in the middle of the night (and he had no reason to doubt he was; his parents were bordering on too stupid to function) he at least wanted to say goodbye. He scaled the side of Kyle's house and knocked on Kyle's window. The curtains were closed, which was odd. He knocked again.

"Kyle, it's me, Stan!" he hissed. "I need to talk to you right away." The seconds ebbed away with no response. Stan was about to knock again when the curtains drew back and Kyle opened the window. He climbed inside. By the light of the computer monitor, Stan could see that Kyle was very flushed. Instinctively, he glanced down, then back up again. His gaze wandered to the monitor and he understood what Kyle had been doing.

"What is it?" Stan hurriedly looked back at Kyle.

"I'm moving to San Francisco. Right now. I'm supposed to be packing." Kyle's mouth opened and he blinked, repeatedly.

"Why?"

"My parents are crazy."

"Yeah, but they do stuff for a reason! What's the reason?" Kyle drew closer as Stan hesitated. "Stan?"

"I'll tell you later." He didn't want his goodbye to be marred with awkwardness.

"I need to know now! We might be able to change their minds!" Kyle seized Stan's arms and pushed him against the wall. His body pressed down on Stan's. Stan felt his face flush like Kyle's as rationality became so much harder. He wanted to tell Kyle. He wanted Kyle to help him. Kyle would never turn against him. His will weakened with Kyle's grip on his arms. Kyle wrapped his arms around Stan's shoulders and buried his head. "You can't go."

"I don't want to." His eyes were warm and wet. He hugged Kyle. "I don't want to leave."

"San Francisco is even shittier than here. You'll just be miserable. Don't go." Stan gave a hollow laugh.

"I know, but I can't do anything. They're determined." His shoulder was getting damp. He stroked Kyle's head, not worrying about normal boundaries.

"You know that knowing all of the words to that Scott MacKenzie song is compulsory? And you do actually have to wear flowers in your hair?" Stan was less sure about this revelation.

"Really?" he asked, skeptically.

"Yeah. And you have to smell your own farts."

"I don't believe you."

"The farts thing is true. The song is kind of true. It's played so much that you kind of absorb the lyrics. Dude, stay here. Please." Stan's throat swelled and tears started rolling down his cheeks.

"I want to stay. I really, really do." He clung tightly to Kyle. "Dude, I love you. I don't want to leave you."

"I love you too, dude. I'm really going to miss you." Kyle finally lifted his tear-streaked face. "You really can't tell me why you have to go?" Stan realised, with a sinking heart, that immediately after what he had said he couldn't tell Kyle why he was leaving. He shook his head.

"Another time." Kyle wiped his face.

"Is there any chance you'll return?" he asked sadly. Stan shrugged.

"With my parents, who knows? But I'll try. I'll really, really try."

"I wish you'd tell me why so I could help." Stan smiled wanly.

"I will. But, right now..." He trousers began to sing. He pulled out his cell phone and answered his mum's call. "Hello?"

"Where are you, Stan? The car is packed and ready to go!"

"You packed already?!"

"Of course! This is an emergency! Where are you?"

"Kyle's house. But all the stuff..."

"We haven't packed all of it. We'll worry about it later. We need to get you from this town as soon as possible. Kyle hasn't beaten you up, has he?" Kyle, who was close enough to hear the conversation, snorted and punched Stan lightly on the arm.

"No, Kyle has managed to not beat me up," Stan replied, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

"Good. We'll be there in ten minutes." Stan hung up.

"Why would I want to beat you up?" Kyle asked. "Is your mom on crack? Is that why you have to move?"

"You wouldn't. My parents are just retarded." Kyle nodded and wandered over to the bed. Stan followed him.

"I really don't want to leave. I'd give anything to stay." Kyle suddenly grinned.

"I know! Say you've gotten some girl pregnant and have to stay!" Stan shook his head.

"Trust me, that won't work."

"Sure it will! We can bribe some girl to pretend to be having your kid, and then we can pretend she had a miscarriage! And by that time, this will have blown over and you can stay!"

"Kyle, they won't believe I've made anyone pregnant."

"Why not?"

"Because."

"Because...?" Stan just shook his head. Kyle shuffled closer and put an arm around him. The warm weight, which ordinarily Stan would have found comforting and reassuring, just increased his worries. He knew he was being stupid, he knew that he could trust Kyle more than anyone else he had ever known, but the words he needed to say were trapped somewhere in his throat. "So," he heard Kyle say, throwing him out of his internal concerns, "San Francisco."

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Safest place for me," Stan mumbled. "According to them, anyway." Kyle nodded, slowly.

"And you can't have made anyone pregnant?"

"No." Kyle nodded again. He drew Stan in closer. Stan let himself be brought in, rested his head against Kyle's.

"Stan, are you gay?" Stan flew back and knocked his head against Kyle's wall. He winced at the pain and rubbed the back of his head.

"How did you...?"

"You're not exactly the most liberal person I've met. You were talking about burning the rainforests yesterday. And I knew your parents would be going there for some stereotypical reason, so..." Stan tried to nod, but it hurt too much to be worthwhile.

"Are you okay with-" Kyle waved a hand impatiently.

"Don't be stupid. Of course I'm okay with it." He held his arm back out to Stan, who took refuge under it once more. "I wish you'd told me before you told your parents."

"I know," said Stan. "I should have known they'd do something retarded like this."

"You can't go to San Francisco." Kyle's voice was authoritarian and more indisputable than Stan had ever heard it before. "You have to stay here."

"Dude, I don't have a choice."

"Stan, please..." Kyle's voice was a whisper now. He stroked Stan's thigh, his hand moving dangerously closer to forbidden territory with every circular movement. "Don't leave me..." Stan didn't allow himself any questions. He leaned in and met Kyle's lips with his own, adrenalin coursing through his body. Kyle was on top of him, grinding into him, giving him everything he ever wanted.

The impatient honking of a car horn made them both jump. From along the corridor, Stan could hear Kyle's mom waking and yelling about the noise. He tried to get up, but Kyle pressed down on his shoulders and kept him pinned down.

"I have to go," Stan pleaded, but Kyle just shook his head and stopped his mouth. Kyle's hand was on his zipper, bringing it down, entering the opening. Stan pushed his hands down Kyle's trousers, under his boxers, encountering no resistance except the growing pressure from Kyle's crotch. There was pounding at Kyle's door, the doorknob was rattled, but Kyle would not release the now indifferent Stan.

"Kyle, we'll break down the door!" Gerald yelled.

"Is he abusing my son?" Randy shouted. "You should never have raised such an intolerant boy!"

"Why would my little bubbeleh abuse his best friend? What is the meaning of all this?" Sheila chimed in.

"I should go," Stan whispered, though he made no effort to push Kyle off him. In response, Kyle's fingers slid inside his boxers.

"No, you shouldn't," Kyle whispered back. Their parents continued shouting and beating at the door. Stan shook his head.

"Dude, I can't get off like this." Kyle's face fell. He retreated and sat up once again, huddling into himself. Stan joined him, his senses slowly returning. "Since when did you, you know, like guys?"

"I don't," said Kyle, completely deadpan. "I just wanted to distract you until this had blown over."

"What?" Stan screamed. He leapt to his feet and glowered down at Kyle. "You were leading me on? How could you do that?" Kyle shrugged, his face hidden in his arms.

"I just didn't want you to leave."

"So you made me think there was a chance we could be together? That's fucking sick!"

"I was only trying to seduce you," Kyle pleaded. "I just-" Stan snarled, forgoing any further chances for explanation, and unlocked Kyle's door. His and Kyle's entire families were stood there, stunned at the outburst, but Stan ignored them all. He stomped down the stairs, trying to block Kyle's yells out, pulling his wrist free when the other boy caught up and caught hold of him, and got into the car. He slammed the door shut in Kyle's face and locked it. His family had caught up with him by now and were still getting into the car as Kyle beat on the window.

"I only wanted you to stay here!" he shouted. Stan pulled out his iPod and let blisteringly loud music drown out the protests from outside. Miscellaneous items dug into him from all sides, and beside him his grandpa complained of something and everything, but Stan couldn't care any more. He couldn't trust his parents. He couldn't trust his super best friend. He would be better off alone in the world.

The car began to move. There was a scream of frustration that so loud it broke through Stan's music barrier. He did not turn to see the perpetrator. He didn't watch as Kyle disappeared into the distance. His eyes were surprisingly dry. He didn't feel sad. He couldn't even feel the anger anymore. He shut his eyes and let sleep take care of his emotions.

--

Stan awoke, his mouth dry and sickly tasting, in a city devoid of snow. He peered through the window at the bright, blue sky which contrasted with the blustery winds that seemed to be sweeping small children off their feet. He caught glimpses of the sea through gaps in the houses.

"Ah, Stan, you're awake at last," said Randy. "You must have been sleeping off a lot of abuse. We're finally here, in the city of the free."

"Isn't all of the US supposed to be the land of the free?" Stan asked, searching in vain for bottles of water. He pulled the earphones from his ears, which were aching. His iPod battery was entirely drained. He supposed that was the source of the ache which was vengefully pounding his brain.

"So naïve, Stanley, so naïve," his dad murmured. "Just you wait. We'll get real acceptance here." Stan couldn't bear to argue, so he contented himself with continuing his desperate search for water or, better yet, aspirin. Neither was forthcoming, and he was soon shunted out of the car into a hotel lobby. His parents took care of checking in, whilst Stan minded his grandpa, who was grumbling about the air being too fresh this close to the sea. And then they were handed keys, bundled into an elevator and sent to their new, temporary (or at least, Stan hoped it was so) home.

All four took the one room, which contained two double beds. Stan held back a groan as he did some basic mathematics and concluded that he would be sharing with his grandpa. He stepped into the bathroom, which was eerily clean and had a mirror that reflected far more than Stan felt was necessary. He quickly reconsidered, but in the process brought back painful memories. He gritted his teeth. He pulled out his phone. At least the bastard had the courtesy to try and contact him (7 missed calls, 10 new messages, 3 voicemails) but it would take far more than that for Stan to forgive him. Forget chocolate, forget flowers, Stan wanted stars.

He poured himself a glass of water and contemplated what kind of stars he wanted and how he would be given them. He remembered websites, selling stars and acres on the moon, and reconsidered again. He wanted galaxies. His super worst enemy should have difficulty fulfilling that demand. He smirked, sipped his water and spat it out again. He stared at the water in disgust. His first taste of San Francisco was not at all suited to his palate.

He went back into the main room, only to find his parents gone once again. His grandpa was still there, watching the television with a look of disgust on his face. Stan didn't fool himself into thinking he had an ally in his anger against San Francisco; his grandpa would be complaining no matter where in the world they were.

"Billy, make your ol' grandpa a cup of coffee!" he shouted. Stan grunted and grumbled, but complied. He joined his grandpa in watching the cream of early morning programming and let his mind sink into daydream. Perhaps San Francisco wouldn't be so bad. It was unlikely that its inhabitants would be as stupid as those in South Park, which had to be the moron capital of the world. Maybe he'd make new friends, better friends, who wouldn't die all the time or try to exterminate races or seduce him. Or maybe seduce him in a nicer way.

The door opened and in walked two rainbows. His parents had decked themselves out in gay pride banners, hats, badges and even (Stan didn't want to know how or why) shoes. They sported identical grins and waved their little rainbow flags at him.

"Look, Stan, we're supporting you!" said Randy, before Stan had recovered enough to ask what the hell they were doing. "We're showing that we're not backwards assholes like those people in South Park and we're proud of our son!"

"Could you be a little less proud? You're hurting my eyes!"

"Now, Stanley," said Sharon, sitting by him on the bed and wrapping an arm around him. "You needn't feel guilty about who you are."

"I don't! But you two look retarded!"

"What's retarded about showing the world your colors?" Randy demanded, pointing at Stan accusingly. "What's retarded about showing gay pride to the world?"

"For a start, everyone will assume you two are gay!" His parents looked at each other, open mouthed, and began taking off their new accessories.

"Who's gay now?" Stan's grandpa demanded, his attention finally taken from the television. "Randy, don't make me give you another beating!"

"Anyway, Stan, we bought you some new things," said Sharon. He caught the bag she threw to him and pulled back the opening as warily as if he was conducting a dissection. The contents were not quite so repulsive. They resembled those his parents had been wearing. At least, he supposed, he was the intended target for the articles.

"What if I'm not ready to 'Say it loud 'cause I'm proud'?" he asked, reading one of the many badges he'd been given.

"Stanley, we brought you here so you could revel in your sexuality!" Sharon snapped. Randy nodded.

"Yeah! So you'd better go revelling!"

"You want me to go screw random guys?" Stan incredulously enquired. His parents, as usual, ignored him.

"We're moving tomorrow. Get ready to be a San Fran nancy boy!" Stan pinched his nose and groaned. So much for leaving South Park stupidity.

--

A couple of hours later, Stan had temporarily escaped his parents' clutches and was free to walk around the city, as long as he wore some of the new things they had bought him. It was a mark of exactly how desperate he was that he actually agreed to wearing a baby blue t-shirt that proclaimed "I (heart) men!", even if he did zip his jacket up to hide the slogan the second he left their sight. San Francisco was colder and windier than he had expected (although not as cold as he was accustomed to), and he found himself agreeing with his grandpa's dislike of the air. He passed a myriad of cheese and wine shops and was passed by thousands of hybrid cars, but saw no-one else dressed as ridiculously as his parents had been. There were, however, a great number of hippies, which caused him flashbacks to the dreadful South Park hippie jam-fest. He shuddered and continued on to the pier.

The scent of cooking doughnuts caught his stomach's attention. He found himself unthinkingly led to the stall and purchasing a bag. As he was handed his goods, he felt a tap at his shoulder. He turned to see a guy whose hair was the kind of messy that took hours to arrange in the morning. He was grinning slightly nervously and kept glancing downwards.

"Hi. I, er, saw your pin," he said. Stan glanced down and saw that one of his parents had shown a dash of cunning for once in their life and pinned a badge to his jacket whilst he was changing. He scowled. Just because he had managed to admit to himself and his parents that he was gay, it didn't mean he was ready for the world to be informed. Especially not by a pink, heart-shaped badge, placed on his clothing whilst he was distracted.

"Oh. Right. Yeah."

"So," the boy said, shuffling his feet nervously. "I take it you are..."

"Yeah, yeah. And my parents want to tell the world," said Stan bitterly. The boy smiled.

"Oh, all the parents here do. Even if their kids aren't gay. It's the in thing at the moment, now that everyone has solar-panelled their roofs and adopted an African dodgeball team." Stan gaped unattractively.

"Seriously? Dude, that's messed up!"

"What's messed up is you holding up the line, kid!" the guy behind him in the queue yelled. Stan and the other boy moved away.

"Yeah. C'mon, you need to meet more of us. I'm Karl." Stan choked on his doughnut. Karl raised an eyebrow. "What's up?" Stan swallowed and shook his head.

"Your name sounds like my best friend's," he muttered. Karl laughed.

"God forbid anyone's names even sound alike," he teased. "What would you have done if I'd shared his name, had a heart attack?"

"Maybe. I'm Stan."

"Good to meet you. And here is the crew!" Karl gestured to a bunch of boys leaning against the pier railings, chatting easily. They glanced up at the sound of Karl's voice and grinned.

"Brought fresh meat, huh?" one blond boy asked, eyeing Stan appreciatively. "Pretty nice steak, too."

"Tasty," a black boy added. "And your name is?"

"Stan," Stan replied, trying his hardest not to squirm under the intense scrutiny.

"Finn," the blond boy said. "And this is Phil," the black boy nodded at him, "Giles," a nervous looking mousy haired boy grinned at him, "and Garfield."

"Call me Gary!" Garfield snapped. He glared at Stan, though the effect was marred with one eye being hidden an emo-fringe.

"Gary's parents' were pretty drunk when his mom started going into labour," Finn explained, flashing his tongue out at Garfield. "And they'd spent the past three hours watching Garfield, so..."

"Why'd you come to the city, Stan?" Giles piped up. "Day trip?"

"No, my parents dragged me here from Colorado as soon as I came out to them. They're pretty retarded."

"Is Colorado very homophobic?" Karl asked.

"Since my teacher from third grade changed his sexuality and his gender every week, I doubt it. Like I said, my parents are fucking stupid."

"So where're you living now?" Finn asked.

"A hotel. We're moving tomorrow, but my parents were too busy advertising my sexuality to tell me where to."

"And what kind of guys do you like?" Phil asked. Stan glared at him.

"Dude, I came out last night. It's fucking bad enough that my parents dragged me out of my home, made me tell the whole of this city that I like cock, without-"

"Okay, okay," said Karl, laying a hand on Stan's shoulder. "Sorry. Do you-" He was broken off by Stan's phone emitting a loud guitar solo. Stan picked it up, saw the caller and grimaced. He moved to put his phone back, but caught the raise in eyebrows around him and changed his mind. He mouthed "one sec," and walked a decent distance away, conscious of the eyes still on his back.

"Hello," he spat down the phone. "What do you want?"

"I want to know if you're fucking all right!" Kyle's voice was heavy. Either he had developed flu overnight or he was sincerely upset. Stan hoped it was both. Let the bastard suffer.

"I'm fine. Can I hang up now?"

"No!" Kyle yelled down at him. "Look, I'm sorry about what I did! I was just desperate to keep you in South Park-"

"So you decided to lead me on? And what were you going to say when we got past the groping? 'By the way, I'm never going to touch that because I like pussy'?"

"I'd have whacked you off."

"You would not!" Stan shouted, momentarily forgetting his surroundings. He cursed inside.

"I would. I'd have sucked you off, too."

"You like girls!" Kyle gave a cry of frustration down the phone.

"Stan, I'd die for you. Blowing you isn't such a big deal in comparison!"

"I was only leaving the city," Stan hissed. "It wasn't a life or death situation."

"I'm sorry for not wanting you to leave me!" Kyle yelled. "I'm sorry that I value you so much that it hurts me to think of you gone! I'm sorry that I wanted to stop your parents dragging you away before they'd had chance to come to their senses!"

"Because that would have happened," Stan agreed sarcastically.

"It could have done! I didn't exactly have much time to make a plan!"

"Okay, let's assume it did work. My parents find half a brain lying around somewhere, let me stay in South Park. I'm there, hoping that you want to be my boyfriend or at least fool around some more, and then what do you do?"

"I didn't think that far ahead!"

"I can tell!"

"I guess I figured you'd forgive me eventually," Kyle said, his voice thicker than before. "I thought I might find some way of making it up to you."

"By leading me on some more?"

"Fuck you, Stan!" Kyle choked down the phone. "I'm glad I didn't ask you to run away!" He hung up, leaving a confounded Stan staring down at his cell phone. He shook his head and glanced back at the group of boys a fair way behind him, who were all chattering in an entirely unconvincing way. He made his way back to them.

"Bad call?" Karl asked sympathetically. Stan shrugged.

"Could have been better," he replied. Karl smiled at him gently and took his own phone out.

"Wanna swap numbers?" he asked. "I can show you around some time."

"I'll come too!" Giles added.

"We can all show you about," Finn said with a smirk. Stan took his phone out again and made his first contacts in San Francisco.


	2. Chapter 2

Moving into the new house was tiring, as Stan had expected, and it seemed like the car's contents had quadrupled overnight. The fact that tomorrow his father would be going back to South Park for more of their belongings and to see about putting the house up for sale did not improve him mood. He had tried to reason with him, but his parents were now firmly committed to the idea of living permanently in San Francisco. They were now discussing the best ways to become integrated to their new community. Stan sloped upstairs, into his designated room (he refused to call it 'his' room) to discover his phone ringing. Kenny. He answered it.

"Hey, dude."

"Where the hell are you?" Kenny asked, forgoing any greetings.

"What do you mean?" said Stan, realising that giving an explanation would simply opened further cans of worms.

"I rang your house. No reply. I rang Kyle, asked him, and he hung up on me. I went around to his and he was in tears-"

"Kyle was crying?" Stan asked, ceasing fidgeting abruptly.

"Yeah. He wouldn't say why. But when I mentioned you again, he told me to fuck off and leave him alone. So where the fuck are you?"

"Kyle wouldn't say?" Stan was surprised, after their last unfriendly conversation, that he hadn't been already betrayed.

"Kyle would not fucking say," Kenny replied, exasperated. "You two break up or something?"

"What the hell? We never dated! What the fuck are you on about?"

"It was a fucking joke! What the hell have you and Kyle been shoving up your asses?" Kenny shouted. Stan pulled the phone away from his ear to preserve his eardrums."Are you going to tell me where you are?"

"California." Today it didn't look very Californian. The fog laid thickly on the city and the grey sky reflected Stan's mood.

"Very funny, dude."

"That wasn't a joke." Stan considered telling Kenny the truth, but decided against it, at least for the time being. He wasn't in the mood to explain himself. "My parents decided to move after, y'know, being really stupid and seeing that show about, well, one of those shows about houses."

"About houses," Kenny repeated, clearly not warming to Stan's story.

"Yeah. Home improvements or something. Or moving. I don't know, they just said they'd seen how beautiful California was and wanted to move there."

"So you have a second house?"

"No. They're actually moving here. Permanently." Stan winced as he uttered the last word.

"Why wouldn't Kyle tell me that?"

"I don't know. He's a douche," Stan spat, his fist clenching.

"Why?" Kenny sounded weary now. Stan could tell he was wishing he had never gotten involved and had headed down to Hooters or wherever on his own.

"He just is."

"Whatever. He's really upset you're gone, anyway."

"Good," Stan lied, ignoring the ache in his chest. Kyle's problems were his own fault and Kyle could fix them himself.

"Fuck, Stan!" Kenny shouted, his temper finally snapping. "He's your best friend!"

"Not any more!" Stan shouted back, forcing fake conviction into his voice.

"You two should talk, since neither of you will talk to me. I'm going."

"Fine!"

"Wait, where in California are you?" Kenny asked, his anger suddenly abating.

"San Francisco."

"Any nice beaches?" Stan laughed, despite himself.

"You just want girls in bikinis."

"Or less."

"You can come over and see for yourself once we're settled in."

"Awesome! Catch you later, dude!"

"Bye, Kenny." Stan hung up, genuinely smiling for the first time since arriving in the city. He turned his attention to the box that had been dumped in the corner and reluctantly began making the room a parody of his old one. His phone soon rung again, this time from Cartman's number. He sighed and answered it, still pulling things from the box.

"'Ey! What's this about you moving to California?" Cartman yelled at him.

"Parents went crazy and decided to move," Stan replied.

"And Kenny gets an invite to stay with you? What about me?"

"You can come too, Cartman," Stan said, rolling his eyeballs.

"Good! But I'm not sharing a room with that Jew-rat!" Stan caught the muffled sounds of Kenny swearing from the other end of the line. "What the hell, Kenny?"

"Kyle and I had a disagreement."

"Why? You left town while owing him fifty cents?"

"Yeah, Cartman, that's why we argued," Stan said through gritted teeth. "Was there anything else?"

"Nah, it's cool. Bye." Cartman hung up, having obtained what he wanted. Stan threw his phone back on the bed. He continued pulling out stuff from the box. Clothes, an odd sneaker, a can of deodorant... his hand stopped on a framed photograph of him and Kyle. His thoughts flickered to plans of hurling it into the wall, but he couldn't be bothered to sweep up the glass. He contented himself with pulling out the picture and tearing it into tiny shreds, taking great care to rip up Kyle's face as much as possible.

"Stan!" He jumped, sending shreds of paper everywhere, at the sound of his mom calling up the stairs. "Stan, honey, we have a surprise for you!" Stan set down the stairs, not bothering to throw away the remnants of his anger yet. He came into the living room, where his pleased parents, two other adults (looking similarly pleased) and a boy around his age were all sat.

"What is it?" he asked, looking around at them all. He had hoped his parents would quell his unavoidable misery with the latest games console, a new bike, or something equally awesome, but he was beginning to suspect this was not the case.

"We've found you a boyfriend!" Randy boomed. "Isn't that great?"

"What?" was all Stan could manage to say. He stared at them, willing them to start laughing, but they continued to grin idiotically.

"Our next door neighbours, Celia Smith-Forsythe and Grant Foster, have a gay son who hasn't got a boyfriend!" Sharon said, giddy with excitement. The gay son waved at Stan, who could only manage a quiet, "Dude."

"We're sure you two will look lovely together!" Celia Smith-Forsythe chirped. "In fact, how about a photo right now?"

"Maybe later," said Stan. "Can I talk to the gay son? In private?" The adults all nodded, beaming. Stan beckoned the gay son and they headed up to where Stan's belongings were stashed. He shut the door behind them.

"What the fuck is going on?" Stan asked.

"Arranged dating. Pretty common around here. Especially with us fake-gays."

"'Fake gays'? You mean you're not actually gay?"

"No, but it's in at the moment to have a gay son. I've been pretending, but because I haven't actually got an official gay boyfriend..." The not so gay son shrugged. "My girlfriend is a bit pissed off, but then again, she's got a fake girlfriend. Well, she thinks she's really her girlfriend and she's just a bi poly, but..."

"Look, I don't care about your story. I don't want a fake boyfriend."

"Yes, you do," the boy said, smugly. He glanced down at the floor. "Hey, what happened here?"

"No, I don't!" Stan insisted. "And that's none of your business!" The boy picked up a few pieces of the photo.

"This your ex or something?"

"Ex-best friend," Stan replied, shortly. "Now, why the hell should I want a straight boyfriend who's going to cheat on me with some chick?"

"Sure, whatever you say. And because fucking a straight guy is the biggest badge of honour you can get."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Winning a straight guy over is big news. You bag me and your gay mates – which I'm sure you'll make soon enough – they'll be all over you. You'll be set. Get me?" Suddenly, South Park didn't seem so stupid.

"That is the single most retarded thing I've heard all day and I live with people who decided to move state in the middle of the night with less than an hour's warning," Stan told him, wishing that Kyle was less of a douche. They could really have laughed about this.

"Whatever. But your parents said they'll ground you for three months if you don't take me to the cinema this weekend."

"Look, wait - what the hell is your name?"

"Tom." Tom dropped the photo shards onto the floor again.

"Tom, I don't even know where the hell the cinema is. And you seem like a total douche, so-"

"You want to get grounded?" Tom interrupted. "Look, I'll make out with you and stuff. And you can do whoever you want on the side. We only want have to date for a month, tops, and then you can do whatever you want."

"I don't even want to be here for a month!" Stan exploded. "I just want to go home!"

"Even though your best friend turned on you?" Tom asked, standing up and staring Stan in the eye. "If he did, how long do you think it'll take the others?"

"Don't you dare assume stuff about Kyle!" Stan yelled, pushing Tom back. Tom returned the shove, just as hard.

"He must have screwed you over pretty badly," he retorted. "Do you really want to go crawling back to him?"

"I'd go back to him on hand and foot rather than go out with a giant douche!" Stan hissed, fists poised for fighting. Tom put his hands on Stan's.

"Look, I understand that you're pissed off. I would be, too, if I wasn't so used to my parents and dropping acid every Friday. But really, this is going to make things easier for you. I can show you around-"

"I have people willing to do that already!"

"Yeah, yeah, and I can help. I can settle you in. You can still date other people, your parents don't get pissed off, and who knows? Maybe this Kyle will get jealous."

"Kyle's straight!" Tom's mouth made an 'o' shape and he nodded, slowly.

"Figures. Then I can help you forget him. Have a little fun." Tom sat down again and glanced through Stan's window. "Hey, you have a pretty cool view from here. You can see Angel Island." Stan gave up. He wordlessly left the room and went downstairs to ask if his mom could talk to him in private for a couple of minutes.

"What is it, Stan?" she whispered conspiratorially. "Are you wanting some condoms?"

"No!" Stan yelled, disgusted and thrown off guard by her forwardness. He lowered his voice again. "Do I have to date Tom?" His mother turned serious.

"Stan, that poor boy came out a year ago and still hasn't had a boyfriend! Would it kill you to show a little compassion and take him out on a few dates?"

"But he's not gay," Stan pleaded.

"Stanley! No questioning other people's sexuality! Now you go fix up a date with that boy or you're grounded!" Stan went to do as he was told.

"You were right. I have to date you," he told Tom as he re-entered the room. "But I'm still not happy about it."

"You'll get used to it," said Tom. "So, what film shall we see?"

--

Stan did, indeed, find himself dragged to the cinema a few days later by his new boyfriend. Also in attendance was Tom's girlfriend Alison and her girlfriend Susannah. As soon as the lights went down, Tom and Alison started making out. Susannah put a hand on Stan's.

"I'm not really into girls," she whispered with a giggle. Stan didn't bother to take his eyes from the cinema screen.

"Neither am I." The hand withdrew.

The film was bad. Not awful, just a generic box of bad churned out by the bad film company by the tonne once summer hit. Stan gave up on following the remnants of plot fifteen minutes in. He would have abandoned all efforts sooner than that, but he had wanted something to distract him from the slurping kissy noises so badly. As they were on the back row, he felt no guilt about taking out his phone and texting Karl. Before the lights had gone back on, Stan had been persuaded to meet him and the other boys from the pier at a nearby coffee shop for karaoke. Tom finally pulled himself from Alison and turned his attention to his boyfriend.

"I have to, uh, walk Alison back," he began. Stan rolled his eyes impatiently.

"Dude, whatever. Just show me the way to Othello's." His demand was fulfilled. Tom and Alison took him there (Susannah had scarpered immediately after the film) and he was met by all the boys from before, who had taken up an old looking table and a number of thrones. Finn was sporting a paper crown. Othello's was a peculiar place: he was in a room which made a blatant play for olde English style, but through the oak doorway he could see another room of retro furniture and neon signs that reflected off the silver walls. He tried to avoid looking at the gap between the two worlds in order to preserve his eyes.

"Stan, my man," Finn greeted him, holding a hand out for a high five, "Have you found yourself a manbag already?" Stan stared at him, perplexed, and slap Finn's hand.

"No, my wallet's in my trousers," he said. The others laughed.

"He meant the guy you were with," Karl explained. "He was holding your hand, but he's so obviously straight."

"You can tell? My parents didn't believe me when I told them."

"The way he didn't notice you leaving was a bit of a hint," said Phil, who was clutching a tankard too big for his hand. "Ready to sing for us?"

"No." He was ignored. The others pushed their chairs back, grinning, grabbed their drinks and headed into the other room. Stan groaned and slouched behind them. The karaoke machine was already in use, as a couple warbled that song about saying something stupid. Stan hated that song. So did Kyle. It was once played at a school dance for all of thirty seconds before he and Kyle had pushed the DJ off his stand and replaced it with "Tommy the Cat". Some people weren't happy, but some people never were. Wendy hadn't spoken to him for a week after. He hadn't noticed until Cartman pointed it out.

"I love this song," Giles said, his head resting on Karl's shoulder.

"Sap," Karl teased. "Didn't think it'd be poignant enough for you." Garfield shook his head.

"It's not heavy enough," he said. He took two straws (hot pink and electric blue) and beat the table with them. "It needs a kickass drum solo or something."

"Not everything needs to be heavy," said Giles.

"No, but everything has to be hard," Garfield retorted.

"All the time?" Karl asked, eyebrows raised. "You must get very sore." The others sniggered.

"What's your favourite song, Stan?" Finn asked, flicking through a booklet of available songs.

"Are you trying to wheedle me into singing or are you offering to butcher it yourself?" Stan picked up the song menu and glanced through it. He forced his attention away from the rap section; just seeing the names brought back painful memories of Kyle. Kyle's room. Kyle's car.

"What makes you think I'd butcher it?" Finn acted very offended, but Stan wasn't taken in by it. "I might be the next Pavarotti."

"And the song might sound dreadful sung by Pavarotti."

"We have to do this!" Giles said, shaking Karl's wrist. He pointed to his list. Karl looked over, smiled indulgently and nodded.

"Sap. All right, we'll go next." The two got up as soon as the two onstage had ceased croning. An unfamiliar song started up, but he could tell be the knowing smirks from his friends that it was one they'd heard, or been forced to hear, a number of times. Giles and Karl began their duet, explaining through song how dependent they were on each other. Stan began doubting the safety of such a set-up and panicked, considering how he and Kyle were normally inseparable. Even now, when he had reason to be angry at him, thoughts of Kyle kept returning to him.

"Stan?" Garfield said, waving a hand in front of his face. Stan jumped and realised that the others were all looking at him.

"What?" he asked, feeling foolish.

"We were asking if there was any song you'd trust us with," said Phil. "Hurry up, I want to go next and there isn't much time before these two finish-"

"Too late," said Finn, resting his head on one hand. "Beaten to it." The backing music hadn't finished fading out, but a woman was already climbing the stage steps. Some buttons were pressed and the room was filled with lilting music. The woman's voice was high but bland. Stan found himself tuning out again. Was he too obsessed with Kyle?

His ears perked up again at the word "runaway". All his attention returned to the song. The woman was singing to her partner at the back of the room, but all Stan could think of was the relevance to his own position. And whilst he really, really doubted that Kyle had fallen in love with him, it was actually plausible that he was – or rather, had been – willing to run away with him. He found himself standing, and all eyes on him again.

"I – I've got to go," he stammered. "I'll text you guys. Tomorrow. Bye!" And he dashed out, paying no heed to their calls and confusion. As soon as he had fled a safe distance, he dialled Kyle's mobile, the song lyrics still resounding in his head to a new backing track of the pump of blood in his ears. Each ring of Kyle's phone felt like a strike through the chest. He needed Kyle to pick up now, before he lost his nerve. Three strikes. Would a fourth take him out?

"Hello?" Kyle sounded groggy. Stan checked his watch; it was only nine o'clock. It was dark, sure, but there was no reason for Kyle to be tired at this time.

"Hey, dude," said Stan, his stomach churning.

"Are you ringing to yell at me?" Kyle asked.

"What? No!"

"Good. I really can't take it right now."

"What's up?"

"Shingles. Which means I have herpes. Cartman's beside himself."

"Bastard," said Stan, surprising himself with how much venom he had injected into the word. "How're you feeling?"

"Terrible, even though I'm dosed up on just about everything. And..." Kyle paused. Stan didn't fill the void, despite giving Kyle his full attention, to the extent of nearly walking into a lamppost. "Why are you ringing? I thought you hated me."

"I wanted to ask you...well, you said something about running away, and..." Stan felt the palms of his hands growing sticky.

"You were going to tell me it was a stupid idea?"

"No! I wanted to ask you if...if you'd have come with me," Stan finally managed, his words coming out in a rush. There was another torturous pause. "Kyle?"

"Of course, dude," Kyle replied. "Did you really think I'd let you run off alone?" Stan released breath he hadn't noticed he was holding.

"Thanks," he mumbled. "That's...that's really cool of you."

"Apart from where I fucked it up," said Kyle, ruefully. "I'm sorry. I should have thought more about what you wanted..." Stan realised he didn't need to hear it.

"Dude, it's okay. " Even he could notice the change in pitch, the happiness evident in his voice. "You did it for good reasons. And you're still the best friend I could ever have."

"I miss you," Kyle said, his voice soft. "Is there any chance of you getting back here anytime soon?" Stan gave a bitter laugh.

"My parents found me a boyfriend," he explained, booting an empty soda can down the sidewalk. "And I've been ordered to date him for a month or get grounded."

"Dude! Sick!"

"The best part is that he's not actually gay. He's got a girlfriend."

"So why the hell do you have to date him?" Kyle was angry now. Stan's spirits, conversely, lifted as he poured out the woes of living in his new town.

"Having a gay kid is the cool thing around here. His parents won't accept him otherwise. And my parents just want to fit in."

"That's more repressive than living here would be!"

"Yeah. But it's a secretly open relationship. I can do whatever I want on the side." Kyle grunted angrily down the phone.

"But you don't want that. You're not that kind of guy."

"Yeah. I know." Stan had finally reached his house. He unlocked the door, passed the living room where his parents were sitting, waiting to spy on him, and continued straight up the stairs.

"Tell them you can't date this guy. Tell them you're in love with someone else or something," Kyle suggested. "Hey, say the guy's in South Park, and you want to move back there to be with him!"

"Dude. That might work!" Stan said, kicking his shoes off. "Except then when I go back, they'll ask why I'm not dating whoever..."

"Say he's straight?"

"No, then they won't move. They'll just say it proves the homophobia or some crap."

"Okay... I'll pretend to be your boyfriend! Or Kenny! He'll probably do it for ten bucks a week." Stan laughed, wishing he was speaking to Kyle face to face.

"And how much do you charge?" he teased, imagining the way Kyle's face would be wrinkling in disgust.

"Dude. I think you've earned enough customer loyalty points over the years." They both laughed.

"Do you mean it?" Stan asked. "You'd really do that for me?" The angry huff from the phone was confirmation enough.

"Stan, it's not a big deal. I'd do much more for you." Stan felt this was a poor choice of words on Kyle's part, but decided to play along regardless. Sadly, playing required thinking, and Stan's brain had temporarily relocated to somewhere with poor signal.

"How much more?"

"I already told you I'd die for you. What more can you want?"

"Okay, assume you're alive-"

"Thanks."

"Would you..." Stan scoured his mind for a suitable task. "Would you rob a bank with me?"

"Like I'd let you do it alone!"

"Would you beat someone up for me?"

"What am I, your boyfriend?" Kyle scoffed. "But yeah, if you needed me to."

"How about looking after me for the rest of my life?"

"I wouldn't trust anyone else to do it."

"Okay, and if I was dying, and this was the only way to save me..."

"Yeah..." Stan's heart pumped painfully in his chest.

"Would you have sex with me?" Kyle laughed, long and hard, and Stan started to doubt he'd ever get his answer.

"Stan, if I'd had the stuff and you'd have gone along with it, I'd have had sex with you to stop you leaving town." Kyle spoke as though he was explaining the alphabet to a small child. "That was why you were so pissed off, remember?"

"You would not have had sex with me," said Stan. He was now glad Kyle was far away and couldn't see his flushed face, or hear his heart thumping so loud his ribs were soon sure to crack.

"No, because I don't have lube," Kyle continued in his elementary school teacher voice. "I'd rather not tear up my asshole."

"But you don't like men." Stan didn't need to make it a question. He knew the answer. The answer hurt.

"Yeah, but..." Kyle swallowed. "I like you. Not in that way," he hurriedly added, "but enough to suck up and bear it if I needed to. Anyway," he hurriedly added, "What about you? What'd you do for me?"

"I'll bone you whenever you're ready," said Stan, still stunned and foggy-headed. He felt ready right now.

"Ha, ha," said Kyle. "You know what I meant."

"I'd die for you, dude. And. Uh. Whatever else you want."

"Come back to South Park."

"I want to! It's my parents who won't let me!" Stan protested. "In the meantime, you want to come down here for a bit?"

"Yeah!"

"When?"

"When can I come?"

--

It wasn't until the next morning that Stan felt comfortable raising the issue of not dating Tom with his mother. She was in an excellent mood, sipping at her red wine contentedly as she flipped through a book. Stan approached her after finishing all his chores, as well as a couple more he anticipated her asking about later.

"Mom, I realised something when I was out on a date with Tom last night," he said, reciting his well practised words perfectly.

"What's that, sweetie?" Her response was better than he could have hoped. He plunged on, his heart lighter.

"It's wrong for me to be his boyfriend, because I'm..." He let his gaze fall the floor and shuffled his feet realistically, acting as he had seen Butters do so many times. "I'm in love with someone else."

"Someone from home?" Stan's head jerked up, this time not a result of his acting.

"How'd you know?" he demanded, leaning over and gripping the chair's armrest tightly. He wondered if she had managed to spy on him and had overheard his entire conversation with Kyle.

"You didn't hide it well. But Kyle's straight." The colour left Stan's face.

"It's not Kyle!" he said, trying to regain his footing. "It's Kenny!" Sharon just laughed and didn't even bother to look up from her book.

"So why'd we find you at Kyle's before we left?"

"Uh..."

"Why are you always with Kyle? And you should see how you look when you're looking at him. It's a miracle he hasn't guessed."

"And how do you know Kyle's straight?" Stan demanded, abandoning his previous track. Sharon's face contorted, but she still didn't look up from her book.

"What the hell was this woman on?" she shouted. "That's the most disgusting-"

"Mom!" Stan yelled, waving a hand between her and the book in a desperate attempt for her attention. "How do you know Kyle's straight?"

"Stanley, I'm trying to read!" She finally looked at him, but it was with a glare. "And if he was gay and interested we'd never have gotten you out of South Park, would we? Now can I please get back to my book? A werewolf is going to marry a baby."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Thanks for all the awesome reviews! Sorry for the wait; I've been away for a while. Hope you enjoy this chapter as much as the ones before.**

Stan's mouth was in the process of being raided by another's tongue. He tried to keep his face expressionless, but it was difficult to maintain when his tongue was being repeatedly stabbed. It didn't help that Tom had just eaten a packet of cheesy poofs. Whilst Stan had no problem with eating his own fake cheese flavoured snacks, he felt it was reasonable to draw the line at second hand fake cheese flavourings. There was a chuckle from somewhere else in the room, a condoning, adult chuckle, a "boys will be boys" chuckle, and the sound of a door closing. Tom and Stan drew apart to opposite sides of the sofa.

"I need a drink," Stan grunted. "And if you're planning on pouncing on me again, you'll need to brush your teeth."

"Anything else, your highness?" Tom asked, picking up the remote and showing no signs of following Stan's orders.

"Brush your hair. It looks fucking stupid gelled back like that." Tom ran a hand over his dark, slicked back hair and raised an eyebrow at Stan.

"But chicks dig this." The TV turned on and started showing a cringe-worthy reality show.

"You're supposed to be my boyfriend. And change the fucking channel, too." Stan reached for the remote, but Tom snatched it up.

"No way! Alison says her entry might be on tonight!"

"I didn't know she was on this show," Stan said, distracted despite himself.

"She didn't get through, but I have to tell her how great she was."

"If she's so great, why didn't she get through?" Tom didn't reply. He was transfixed by the TV screen, scouring the pixels for any stray strand of hair that could belong to his girlfriend. Stan heaved himself off the sofa and headed into the kitchen to fix his own drink. The simple task had been made even simpler by Tom's mom showing him every inch of the house the first time he had been around, as if he was a new lodger she intended to retain.

"I just want you to feel like you're home, sweetie," she'd said, laying a hand heavy with ethnic jewellery on his arm.

Stan did not feel at home. There was nowhere in San Francisco that he felt at home. The only time he ever felt close to being at ease in the city was when he first awoke in the morning, before he had chance to take in his surroundings, when he truly believed, if only for a second, that he was home in South Park. He carried his clunky, trendy glass back into the living room.

"Has she been-" Stan was cut off by a snarl from Tom, who jabbed a finger at the screen. The camera panned back to the contestant, a wavy haired blonde girl with pale skin and a penchant for lacy clothes. Alison. Stan rolled his eyes and drank his water in the corner, looking out of the window rather than witness the sight of Tom fawning. He could not cut out the singing, a predictable rendition of "I Kissed a Girl", but he could predict the outcome. As expected, Tom was soon shouting obscenities that Kenny would have scribbled down for future use as Alison was rejected.

"Where's my phone?" Tom demanded, jumping to his feet and staring around the room. "I need to ring her!"

"How the fuck should I know?" Stan asked. The doorbell rang. Stan went to answer it, more to get away from Tom than a desire to help. It was Alison. Stan nodded to her in response to her beaming smile and they both returned to the living room.

"Hi, honey," Alison chirped. Tom quickly took his head out from under the sofa cushions and flung his arms around her. "Have I been on yet? I wanted to watch it with you; I couldn't bear to sit through it alone-"

"You just missed it. You were right, they must have been high to reject you," Tom said, stroking her head lovingly. Stan resisted the urge to mime throwing up, though only because he didn't want to tempt fate. "But it's being recorded, so we can watch again if you'd like."

"Maybe later? How about we..." She trailed off, and both seemed to notice Stan again at long last.

"I'll leave you to it. Your parents are out now," said Stan. Neither protested his departure. He skulked down the San Fran streets, his hair whipping his face. He suspected he must be a gloomy sight, with his hands buried in his pockets and his head bent against the wind, but he didn't find himself caring. In South Park, he couldn't walk down the street without running into at least a few people he knew. Here, he was just another face that would never been seen again.

He unlocked the door to his parents' new house and headed upstairs. In his room, boxes still littered the floor, containing Stan's resistance to his new home. What he had bothered to unpack was deliberately arranged to look as different to his South Park room as possible. He had briefly tested out a similar arrangement, in one fit of melancholy, but the effect was to make it look like an uncanny valley version of a place he had cherished. He laid on his bed, rang Kyle and closed his eyes.

"Hey, dude," Kyle said, picking up on the first ring. "How's Hippie Central?"

"Lame. I had lunch with Tom and his family. They started talking about how I needed a 'five year plan'." Stan cringed at the memory.

"What the hell is that?"

"It's where I plan out what I want to do in the next five years. Like go to college-"

"You've already been accepted! We're starting in September!" Stan smiled at Kyle's indignation and continued.

"What sort of job I want afterwards, any other projects, starting a family... And they asked how Tom and I were going to keep in contact, considering that he's going to some art college in San Francisco and I'll be far, far away. They asked how often I'll be able to visit."

"And you said never, right?"

"I said I wasn't the planning type and asked where they got their wine from." Kyle laughed. "And then Tom's parents left and Alison came over."

"Jesus, dude. Sounds fun."

"Oh, it was. Anyway, what's going on in South Park?" Kyle laughed again.

"You'll never guess what Kenny asked me today."

"No, I probably won't. What?"

"He asked if I was gay." Stan opened his eyes and joined in with Kyle's laughter.

"Wish my parents would believe that. Why'd he ask?"

"You told your parents I was gay?" Kyle asked, his interest clearly rising. "What did they say?"

"I told my mom I loved you and crap," Stan said, his pulse rising as he endeavoured to keep his voice steady. "She insisted you were straight and started ranting about werewolf babies."

"What's with moms and unnatural babies? Mine was screaming about a vampire one yesterday. Anyway, did you tell her I was a flaming gaywad in secret?" Stan attempted to envision a flaming gaywad Kyle, but even his fairly active imagination let him down.

"She wasn't willing to listen, dude, and her mind seems pretty made up. And why did Kenny ask you that?"

"According to him, I was missing you too much. How about I make out with you in front of them when I come over?" Stan had to admit, he could see how Kenny could have made that leap of logic. He considered telling Kyle it was okay, his parents wouldn't budge when they believed something, but he found himself instead telling Kyle that it was a good idea and worth a shot. Damn. His phone bleeped loudly in his ear. He glanced at the screen to discover Karl was ringing him. "What's that noise?"

"Someone calling me," Stan said, offhandedly, eager to push the conversation back to Kyle's looming visit. Sadly, Kyle had other plans.

"I'll let you answer it. I have to go meet Kenny in a bit."

"Oh. Okay."

"Think he'll be well covered up so I don't lust after him?" Kyle teased. Stan managed a chortle.

"Like a burn victim. Talk to you soon."

"Yeah. Bye!" Stan answered the next call, which had been ringing incessantly during his goodbye.

"Hi," he said, rolling onto his stomach and staring out of the window. The sky had clouded over whilst he had been inside and he could see trees flailing in the raging winds.

"Hey, you free tonight?" Karl asked. "Giles's home alone, so it's party time."

"Sure. Where is Gary's?"

"I'll pick you up," Karl told him. "About nine okay?"

"Yeah. Do I need to bring anything?"

"Nah, we've got the stuff. See you later!"

It wasn't until after they had hung up that Stan began to wonder what exactly was meant by the word "stuff". Booze? Drugs? Sex toys? Chips? He put it out of mind and instead began worrying about the mounting pile of catch up work he had been set by the school. He picked up a book and began leafing through it. While most of the syllabus was familiar, there were odd sections that would catch him out and stump him. At least, as his parents loved to point out, he would have plenty of time to get it all done in the upcoming holidays. God forbid Stan should actually want some time to himself during that his vacation.

--

Soon a horn blared outside his house. Stan peeked out of the window, waved down at Karl and headed outside. Karl's car was unlike how he had imagined it. He would have expected a couple of smile-tweaking bumper stickers, a horrific mess that seemed to be growing over the backseat, and, hell, a different car entirely. This was oddly boxy and made him miss Kyle's sleek, slim vehicle. The tidiness was something they shared, but there the similarities ended. Stan could not begin to imagine how badly beaten up Kyle – or any other kid in South Park, for that matter – would be for having cuddly toys line not just the front but also the back of the car. Some of them clutched desperately to hearts that Stan luckily could not read in the darkness.

"Admiring my toy collection, huh?" Karl asked, smirking as he noticed Stan's expression. "They have that effect on people."

"I feel like they're admiring me," Stan retorted, trying to avoid looking at them. It was true, he felt like he was being watched from every angle.

"Oh, who wouldn't be?" Karl asked, pushing the accelerator down to the floor. Stan gripped his seat and deeply regretted getting in the car. If he ever got out of it alive, he would never again tease Kyle for driving like a grandmother. The car pulled up suddenly in front of a house that, to Stan, seemed identical to all the others in the area, but on a larger scale. He climbed out shakily and followed Karl to the front door. Giles greeted Karl by pouncing onto him and Stan with a little wave.

"Come in, come in, the others are already here," he said, leading Karl by the hand through a huge entrance hall and into a lavishly decorated living room. Stan glanced around nervously, wondering if a place with obviously expensive decorations crammed into every corner was really the best location for any kind of party. He managed to sit on the sofa without breaking anything and let out a sigh of relief.

"Stan, my man, why have we not seen much of your pretty face?" Finn asked, snuggling up to Stan and running a finger down his chest. "I hope you're not avoiding us..."

"He will be if you keep that up," Gary said, although he didn't take his eyes from the TV screen. Stan assumed that this meant Finn was always overly physical with people. "Take it, bitch," he muttered, punching ferociously at Phil's character onscreen.

"Just been busy with unpacking and my manbag," Stan replied, trying to subtly edge from Finn's grip. They all laughed.

"How are things with your manbag?" Giles asked, suddenly appearing at Stan's side with a drink.

"His parents act like we're fucking engaged."

"They do that," Phil said, sagely. "Break it off the second you can."

"Tried. I'll get grounded. I'm going to pretend to be dating my best friend when he comes over." The game was paused. All eyes turned to Stan.

"Would this be the friend with a name like mine?" Karl asked, enough sweetness in his voice to rot all of Stan's teeth in seconds.

"Yeah," Stan replied grudgingly.

"The one you argued with before?" Phil asked, shuffling closer.

"Yeah. We made up. What game are you playing?" No one fell for the change of topic.

"And now he's willing to pretend to be your boyfriend?" Finn whistled. "What dedication. How did you convince him?"

"It was his idea!" Stan's attempt at defence did not help. The others shared infuriatingly knowing glances. He hadn't made the situation any better.

"He's gay," Giles stated. Stan glared at him.

"No, he's not. We're just really close."

"He could be bi," said Karl, holding his head thoughtfully.

"He doesn't like dicks!" Stan shouted. It didn't matter if he had privately wondered as to his friend's true sexuality; he didn't like other people presuming to know his best friend better than he did. "Just because people are more open here, it doesn't mean you know everything about who's gay and who's not!"

"Stan's right," said Phil. "This guy could be straight. I mean, what's a kiss or two?" He glanced at Stan. "It's not going further than that, right?" Stan knew, even as he fought valiantly against it, that his face would be betraying him. Kyle's recent behaviour didn't suggest they would be sticking to such chaste activity.

"How far is it going?" Finn asked, grinning wickedly. Stan pinched his nose.

"I don't know. Until my parents are convinced that I can't date Tom and it's safe for me to go home."

"That's easy. Have sex on the kitchen table," Finn advised. Stan recoiled in horror. He imagined his parents' reaction. He imagined how his grandpa would yell at Billy. He imagined suggesting it to Kyle. None of the mental visions were very pleasant.

"Sick, dude," he spat. "Just...sick."

"I agree. You wouldn't want to eat off it afterwards. Better do it in the front porch," said Gary.

"Will we get to meet this friend?" asked Giles.

"I'm not having sex with him and none of you are meeting him if you're going to talk like this," said Stan. He took temporary refuge from their inquisitive faces in his drink.

"Let's lay off Stan for a bit," said Karl. He glanced expectantly at Gary. "You got...?"

"Yeah, yeah," said Gary, reaching into his pocket. A small, plastic bag was passed around, no different to the ones Stan sometimes wrapped sandwiches in. He panicked as the bag came closer, trying to weigh the risks and the benefits, but not actually knowing what it is, he soon gave up. Finally it reached him. Acid.

"I don't think I-" he began, but he was met with a very negative chorus.

"It'll be fiiiine," said Finn, waving a hand sloppily in Stan's general direction.

"Just once won't kill you," Giles murmured, curling up with Karl in a corner and letting his eyelids drift closed.

"Seriously, no." Stan stood up, prepared to leave, and looked to his lift. Karl was still fairly normal, but he had a look about him – was it slightly glazed eyes? Stan wasn't sure – but in any case, he could see he would need to make alternate arrangements. He ignored the feeble calls for him to join in the fun and tried to call a taxi.

Five failed attempts later, Stan found himself trying to walk home. It took him almost an hour to replicate the brief car journey back, as he kept being confused as to which health food shop was which and whether or not he had passed that delicatessen before. His mood when he finally managed to get home was not brilliant, and was not improved by his parents' jovial enquiries as to how Tom was and to play safe. He locked himself away, leaving all lights off and curtains drawn, and put headphones on in an attempt to drown out his surroundings.

Would the others still be friends with him? He imagined going to school the next day, abandoned by the few friends he'd managed to make so far. He envisioned himself having to sit with Tom, listen to him and his friends bitch about the expectations of their parents, and shuddered under the imagined gaze of their accusing eyes. He logged on to messenger, praying for a voice of reason and reassurance.

Cartman was the first to message him, demanding to know when his invite to San Francisco would be fulfilled. Stan was not in the mood. He started writing to Kyle.

StanTheMan: Hey, dude.

Kyleometry: Hi! You okay?

StanTheMan: No. I just ran off from a party.

Kyleometry: Huh? Why?

StanTheMan: They were all dropping acid.

Kyleometry: Oh, yeah. They did that when I was there.

Stan reeled back from the computer screen, nose wrinkled with disgust. He was all for people doing what they wanted, although he'd prefer not to be expected to take hallucinogenics on a school night, but at the age when Kyle was when he was here?

StanTheMan: You mean your parents' friends did, right?

Kyleometry: No, the other kids. Our parents were too busy snorting farts.

StanTheMan: You mean the other kids, all under ten, were doing acid?

Kyleometry: Yeah. Ike took three hits.

StanTheMan: Your BABY BROTHER took ACID?

Kyleometry: Yeah. I know, it's fucked up.

StanTheMan: Jesus Christ! What did you do?

Kyleometry: Well, I only took a half.

Stan blinked, not sure he could believe the words on screen. He felt betrayed. It wasn't what Kyle had done so much as the fact he hadn't told him before now. Then came feelings of doubt. He might have freaked out too much. Maybe he shouldn't have refused.

StanTheMan: You never said.

Kyleometry: It wasn't a big deal. I haven't taken it since.

StanTheMan: Do you think I should have taken it?

Kyleometry: Dude, that's up to you. I didn't think it was that great.

StanTheMan: Seriously, does everyone here do it?! Am I going to be outcast if I don't?

Kyleometry: Er. I don't know about everyone...

StanTheMan: At least Cartman won't want to come if I tell him they're all drug taking hippies.

Kyleometry: Wait, Cartman wanted to come? He hates San Francisco!

StanTheMan: He was bugging me about it two minutes ago, so I guess so.

Kyleometry: Weird. Anyway, if your friends leave you 'cause you won't take acid then they're douches.

StanTheMan: Yeah, but that doesn't stop me turning into a hermit.

Kyleometry: You could take up a secondary account on WOW. Then you wouldn't care.

StanTheMan: Thanks, Kyle.

Kyleometry: Sorry. I can see if I can get plane tickets to come over this weekend, if your parents won't mind me staying two weekends in a row?

StanTheMan: Dude, you sure? It'll be really expensive.

Kyleometry: Dad's new position in that fancy law firm pays a lot. It's fine.

Stan dashed down the stairs, his feet carelessly slipping down steps and constantly on the verge of losing grip. He ran into the living room and pulled the headphones he had entirely forgotten about from his ears.

"Mom, dad, can Kyle come this weekend?" he asked, voice shaky with excitement.

"Sure," his dad said, not glancing up from his laptop.

"I thought Kyle was coming next weekend?" Sharon asked, managing to pull her head out of a copy of some glossy magazine.

"He is. Can he come this weekend as well?"

"Well, I guess so, if his parents are okay with it," she replied, glancing over at Randy. He made no input. She rolled her eyes. "Okay, you go sort it out."

"Thanks!" He fled again, back to his computer to tell Kyle the good news.

StanTheMan: You can come! If you can get tickets, I mean.

Kyleometry: Already checked them out. I can arrive there for eight in the evening on Friday if that's okay?

StanTheMan: That's great!

Kyleometry: Okay, ordered. Think you'll be okay at school tomorrow?

StanTheMan: Should be. And it's not like I'll be there much longer. I mean, we graduate soon.

Kyleometry: Yeah. And you might be back for graduation in South Park!

Stan felt a twinge in his chest. He wasn't so sure about that. It hadn't occurred to him before now that he might not get to graduate with the people he had known since he could walk and talk, and that he might be thrown in with a bunch of strangers.

StanTheMan: Maybe.

--

Stan awoke the next morning with a vague feeling of dread. He lay in bed, trying to figure out the root of the problem, and remembered last night's party. He groaned, sat up, and prepared for what could potentially be the worst day yet in San Francisco. He did not call at Gary's house as he had begun to do on the way to school, nor did he pop into Phil's. He expected that even if either were in, neither would be interested in talking to him now. Maybe, if none of them looked too hostile at school, he would approach them and apologise, but the early morning was a foul enough time even without problems to exacerbate it.

Before he had even reached the school gates, he was hauled backwards. He turned to see his assailant, a grim looking Finn. Stan scrambled free and backed away, mentally preparing excuses. He hadn't expected such an assault.

"Look, dude, I'm sorry about last night," he began. Finn grimaced, closed his eyes and shook his head.

"It's cool," he croaked. "I'm regretting it right now. Bad comedown. You got back okay?"

"Y-yeah," said Stan, his body sagging with relief.

"'Kay. See you at lunch?" Stan nodded. Finn managed a flicker of a smile. "'Kay. I'm gonna go pass out in my homeroom. See you." He staggered inside.

--

None of Stan's friends were at their best that lunchtime. They slumped over their lunch trays and winced if someone slurped his drink too loudly. Compared to them, Stan felt positively chirpy.

"We should have waited until Friday," Karl whispered, clutching his forehead dramatically. "Why didn't we wait? We could be sleeping this off..."

"We can do it again on Friday," Giles suggested, pushing the food around on his plate disinterestedly.

"Sounds good," said Gary, giving a minuscule nod. The others mumbled approval.

"I can't. I'm meeting a friend at the airport," said Stan. They all raised their zombie-like faces to stare at him.

"Shit, is that this weekend? Did I skip a week or something?" asked Karl.

"No," said Stan, drawing the word out far longer than it deserved. "Kyle's decided to come up this weekend as well as next."

"He wants to bone you," said Phil. "I'd arrange to get your parents out."

"He does not want to bone me!" said Stan. They all recoiled at the increase in volume. "He just felt sorry for me because I was homesick."

"Yeah, he wants to comfort you with his cock," said Finn.

"Agreed," said Karl.

"Make sure you've got condoms and stuff," advised Giles. Stan gave up. He would beg them not to suggest such things to Kyle when they were in more amenable states. He felt his bag vibrate. He took out the source of the vibrations and answered Cartman's call.

"What's up?"

"Why is the Jew coming this weekend and next?" Cartman shouted down the phone. On either side of him, Giles and Phil almost fell off the bench in shock. Stan saw people glaring at him furiously. Anti-Semitism was obviously treated more severely here than in South Park.

"Because he's my best friend, fatass," he said, trying to distract Cartman from making more comments that could get him into trouble. "What, you wanting to dive into the harbour and get free sushi?"

"No, Stan, I have an important mission!" There was some murmuring at Cartman's end of the line that Stan couldn't decipher. "Ey! Shut up, Jewtard! This is more important than you seeing your boyfriend! Stan, I think Kyle wants to butt-rape you. He seems way too happy right now." Stan felt it might be wise to take the phone call somewhere else. He waved goodbye to his friends and headed outside. They seemed pleased that calm had been restored to their table.

"Cartman, Kyle is helping me to leave this place," he said, taking up residence in against the school building, far from potentially offended ears.

"Fine! As long as I do my mission first! Hey, I can help you in his place!" Stan involuntarily shuddered.

"No. No, you can't."

"Why the hell not? I'm twice as awesome as Kyle!" Stan could just about hear Kyle telling Cartman that he was twice as fat. He joined in with Kenny's laughter. "I'm seriously, Stan. I can do anything better than Kyle!"

"Okay, Cartman, Kyle is going to pretend to be my boyfriend. Can you do that?"

"Gross, you guys! I'm never doing that!"

"Then I guess you can't take his place," said Stan, feeling very relieved.

"Aw, seriously, why would you do something so gay? I mean, I can understand Kyle, being a Jewfag-"

"Cartman, I'm the one that's gay!" Stan snapped, forgetting his worries about how his friends other than Kyle would react. "That's why I got moved here!"

"Aw, man, and I've gotten changed next to you! Sick! Ow!" Stan wished he could punch Cartman, kick him, or at least see what had happened on the other end of the line that had hurt him.

"Like I'd ever check out your fat ass!" he shouted. "I'm surprised that being near every day didn't send me straight!"

"Like Kyle's ass is any better!" Cartman retorted.

"It's like a million times better!"

"Whatever! It's probably got all kinds Jewish crap on it!"

"No, it hasn't!"

"Aha! You've seen his ass! He seduced you with his Jewish gay powers!"

"Kyle never seduced me!" Stan lied.

"I should have known it! He was always trying to get you in his pants! Ey! Stop that, Jewboy!" Stan made out Kyle screaming that he was going to rip Cartman's head off, but he couldn't tell what it was that he was threatening to do with it next. "I remember that one time that he made us play football topless and then he tackled you and then writhed on top of you for, like, half an hour-"

"I tackled him, you fat fuck, and it wasn't half an hour!"

"Well, whatever, you're a fag. But there was that one time, when he kept licking your ice lolly-"

"I started that, Cartman," Stan grunted. He hadn't realised that Cartman had been keeping such a close watch, even if it had been over the wrong person. "I practically deep throated his."

"Gross! Sick! Gross! Okay, there was that one time, when he told me he wanted to suck you off – yes, it did happen, you stupid Jew! Ey! I'm buffer than you!"

"Cartman, Kyle's not gay." Although half of the world seemed to disagree. He wished his parents fell into that category, incorrect as it was.

"Then why has he moved three photos of you next to his bed, huh, Stan? Kyle, you hit me one more time, I will kick you in the nuts!" Stan had no response to that. Luckily, the bell sounded, shrilly demanding all students to the classrooms.

"I've got to go now. I'll speak to you later."

"Fine, gaywad. Your boyfriend sends his love."

--

And, in the next period, Stan received a text from Kyle:

luv u loads xxxxx


	4. Chapter 4

_Thanks for all the great reviews! Yeah, Kyle is acting pretty gay, and this will be explored...later. Hope you enjoy!_

_--_

Kyle kept texting Stan for the rest of the day, and the day after, but adamantly refused to pick up his phone. What was worse was the fact that his home phone also went unanswered, and after leaving three answer-phone messages Stan decided he should give it a rest. That didn't stop him sitting at his computer all evening, both evenings, hoping Kyle would come online, or stop him rereading the mysterious (and, to be honest, very unlike Kyle) messages. He had quite a collection now:

hey big boy lookin 4wrd 2 the weeknd? Xxx ;)

txt me bk staaan :x xxxxxx

i wnt u 2 pound my butt rite now!!

u mk me soooo hard. cnt wayt 4 u to ride me!! xxxx

eat me im kosher xxxx

And that was only the beginning. And, compared to Kyle's usual style of texts, they didn't quite fit. He opened up the last one that he knew had come from Kyle, and had to concede that if these new texts were coming from his best friend, his best friend probably had concussion. Even in texts, Kyle used proper spelling and grammar. He also knew that the word 'wait' didn't have a 'y' in it. But where was Kyle? He refused all invitations to go out, choosing to sit and wait (without a 'y') for the real Kyle to contact him.

His friends at school were not taking it well, from Stan's point of view. Their views on it alternated between hilarious and annoying. Annoying because Stan spent his time gazing into space or checking his phone, but hilarious because of all the opportunities to tease him that it produced.

"He is so gay. Snatch him up and ravish him," said Gary, peering intently at his sandwich's innards.

"They aren't from him! He wouldn't do it like this!" Stan insisted.

"So why do you look so pleased when you get a new one?" asked Phil.

"I don't look happy! I look exasperated!"

"You try might try to, but most people don't smile at the corners of their mouth when they're exasperated," said Giles. "You see, they're not actually happy."

"Screw you all. Like none of you have ever liked a straight guy and hoped something would happen, even if you know it won't." He took a defiant slurp of his juice and glared at them, daring them to lie.

"The guy in question rarely suggests to a pseudo relationship and sends loving text messages," said Giles.

"They're not from him. Kyle wouldn't do it like this."

"How would he do it?" asked Gary. "Roses?"

"No! He'd do it in person and be serious about it."

"Stan, we have to talk," said Finn, making his voice deep and authoritative. "Like that?"

"No, because he's not a pissed off girlfriend. He'd probably stutter or something. He'd be nervous. And then he'd tell me he was attracted to me or something. And then we'd laugh, kiss, and-"

"You've really thought this fantasy through, haven't you?" asked Phil. "Can we skip to the dirty part?" Stan scowled at him and continued slurping his juice. "Yeah, you keep that sucking skill up, Stan. You'll need it for the weekend."

Finally, on Wednesday afternoon, he got a call from Kyle. Heart pumping, he seized the phone and answered.

"Hi, Kyle!"

"Hey, Stan," Cartman simpered, his attempts at imitating Kyle's voice entirely unconvincing. "Why didn't you answer my texts, silly buns?"

"Fuck off, Cartman!" Stan screamed. He threw his phone onto the floor and collapsed onto his bed. His body rocked with the intensity of his sobs. He should have known. He did know, deep down. So why did he get his hopes up? He was just stupid, just like his stupid parents. He cried until all the pain was out and his body hollow.

Dusk had already fallen when his phone rang again, playing Kyle's signature tune. Stan debated the merits of moving. Why speak to Cartman again? He had enough of his stupid games. The song continued on. Stan's eyes burned with the desire to cry once more that his body could not fulfil. Anger rose up inside him. Cartman shouldn't be allowed to control him. He picked up the phone, ready to spew vitriol.

Kyle's voice awaited him, heavy and barely intelligible through his tears. Stan's heart felt like it was leaping up through his chest, constricting his lungs. "Stan," he cried. "Oh, god, Stan. I love you. I love you."

"Kyle? Kyle! What's wrong? What's happening to you?" Stan begged him, each millisecond of silence taking an unbearable toll on his chest.

"You were supposed to say 'I love you' back, you asshole!" That was Cartman, again, and the rage rushed back to Stan.

"Why is Kyle crying? What the fuck have you done to him?"

"Say you love Kyle and you want to screw him and I'll tell you!" Stan punched the wall, barely registering the ensuing crunch.

"You're a fucking cunt, Cartman!" he screamed. "Not surprising, given your mom is a fucked cunt!"

"Ey! You want to hear what's happened to your boyfriend, you'd better pledge your love to him! And, and make it convincing!"

"I love Kyle," Stan said, the attempt at calm sincerity on each word an enormous effort. "And I want to make love to him. Now what the fuck have you done with him, you fat fuck?!"

"Tut, tut, Stan, names get you nowhere. See ya!" He hung up, leaving Stan snarling down a dead line. He tried Cartman's number. Unavailable. Stan suspected he'd switched it off, predicting Stan's reaction. He tried Cartman's old number, desperately, and was surprised when he actually heard a dial tone.

"Stan?" Once again, Stan's mouthful of vitriol had to be swallowed. This was Kyle. His voice was still as heavy as before, but there was a tinge of hope now. "Stan? You're okay?"

"Of course I'm okay! Are you okay? Why are you crying?" Kyle screamed. Stan jumped, visions of his friend being tortured flicking through his head. He wasn't sure what Cartman wouldn't do for his own sick gain.

"That fucking bastard Cartman!" Kyle screamed. "He told me you'd come to South Park!"

"Come to South Park?" Stan repeated, but Kyle kept talking furiously.

"He said you'd been hit by a car and only had a few more seconds to live! He said if I didn't say goodbye now, I'd never have the chance!"

"No. Fucking. Way."

"Yes way! And then he told me you were – you were..." Kyle started crying again, and Stan, who had grown up deciphering Kenny, couldn't tell what he said. He could guess. He wanted to kill Cartman. He actually wanted to punch his face in, send teeth flying, turn him into a bloody pulp... But he had to keep his emotions in check. He had to support Kyle.

"It's okay, it's okay," he said, trying to keep his voice steady and soothing. "I'm fine. Totally fine. One hundred percent fine."

"Yeah... Dude, I feel so lame right now."

"You sound tired."

"Yeah, crying solidly for a few hours does that to you." Stan had never felt such a level of empathy before, but he didn't admit to it. Kyle didn't need to worry further. "How'd you know how to contact me? Even I don't know what number I've got."

"I tried to ring Cartman's old number and I got you instead. Best bargain I ever made." Kyle managed a wheezy laugh.

"Why were you ringing Cartman's old number?"

"He switched off his usual form."

"Why did you want Cartman?"

"Because he rang me with a clip of...what you must have said." Stan instinctively took the phone from his ear. It was just as well; he could hear Kyle's screams of anger emanating loudly from the phone even when it was three feet away. He returned the phone to his ear for a diatribe of the filthiest words that Stan had ever heard uttered. He was surprised to realise that his anger had mostly abated; his overwhelming feeling was one of relief that Kyle was well and safe.

"What the fuck is he planning?" Kyle finally demanded.

"No idea. We'll find out soon enough. Where are you? I've been ringing you at home all day today and most of yesterday."

"Wedding. I'd forgotten about it until mom forced me in the car with a suitcase yesterday. I've spent every waking second around my family and far too many of them are like my cousin Kyle."

"Party of the century, huh?"

"You bet." Kyle heaved a long, fractured sigh. "I miss you."

"I miss you too," said Stan, tears managing to well up in his eyes again. He tried to say more, tried to find words to express the disappointment he faced every morning when he realised he wouldn't be seeing his friend, tried to explain the hollowness inside him, but all he managed was an awkward silence. Kyle shared the silence, and Stan imagined him experiencing the same inner turmoil and smiled, even as the tears rolled down his cheeks.

--

_Love:_

–_verb_

_to have a profoundly tender, passionate affection for (another person)_

_to need or require; benefit greatly from_

_to embrace and kiss (someone) as a lover_

_to have sexual intercourse with_

Stan found himself having to continuously sneak in glimpses at the dictionary in order to keep his hopes down. He knew that Kyle, when declaring his love, did so in a firmly platonic sense, but it was hard to keep himself reminded of that sorry fact. Even black and white reminders of what Kyle really meant didn't help. The juxtaposition of the sparkling possibilities dazzled the more mundane reality into oblivion.

He was now fighting to keep his expectations realistic and his hopes down. The fight was not going well. Kyle would be arriving in the airport at any moment, and the flesh and blood version of Kyle was unlikely to announce his change in sexuality, dragged Stan into the nearest closet, toilet or similar and fuck his brains out. If Stan was lucky, Kyle would give him a hug.

Despite his reservations, he couldn't help his gaze from flicking to every timepiece in sight, as though a change in number or position would make Kyle magically appear in front of him. It was just as well; Stan was sure that all of the clocks in this infernal lounge were set to go at half the speed of normal time. He scanned the people surging out from the gates ahead, his hopes flying every time he caught a strand of red hair or a familiar item of clothing.

Finally Stan caught sight of Kyle, who seemed to have spotted him at exactly the same moment. The grin Stan knew was on his own face was mirrored on Kyle's. Kyle broke into a run, and Stan realised he too was running. They threw their arms around each other.

"Dude, I am so fucking happy to see you," said Kyle.

"Same, dude. Come on, let's get home." Stan started leading Kyle to the exit. Kyle continued to scan the crowd.

"Your parents here?"

"No, they're at a dinner party with mom's friends from work. Why?"

"I wasn't sure if I should be kissing your face off or something." A passing businessman gave Kyle an alarmed look. "Or eating out your ass. You know. The usual," he continued, pretending not to have noticed the man. Stan tried to contain his laughter. They climbed into a taxi and headed off to Stan's house.

"It's weird being back here," said Kyle, looking disdainfully out of the window. He poked Stan in the ribs. "Hey, down there was where my house was!" Stan peered down the street and mimicked Kyle's disdainful expression.

"That's where Tom's girlfriend lives," he said, his voice acidic. Kyle looked even more disgusted.

"Your fake boyfriend's real girlfriend?"

"Yeah."

"Lame. Hey, did you hear the news about the new Indiana Jones movie?" Stan groaned. Kyle grinned wickedly. "Oh, dude, just wait until you hear what Lucas is doing to the next one..."

--

The two of them lounged in front of the television, miscellaneous snacks laid around them. Stan had to confess that his attention was not entirely on the DVD. Whilst he loved the series, a show that he had been able to quote for about a decade was the most engrossing thing to do. This attention was therefore allowed to wander relatively freely. It had chosen to wander to Kyle.

Stan was incredibly aware of every movement Kyle made, every shuffle, every sigh. A slight brush of Kyle's arm against his could make him spend the next five minutes wondering the intentions behind it. Kyle's leg lounging against his made him determined not to budge an inch, even when his foot had been aflame with pins and needles for the past half hour. His predicament was not helped by Kyle kissing him every time there was a noise that might indicate Stan's parents or grandpa coming close.

The first time it had happened, Stan felt electrocuted (in a good way, if that was possible) and wondered if he had fallen asleep. Kyle's tongue against his own felt too realistic to be a dream, and Stan had been very, very confused until Kyle finally pulled away and said "Huh. Thought your parents had come home or something," before turning his attention infuriatingly back to Star Trek. It had reached the stage where Stan would welcome anyone to the house (friend, family, intruder – hell, Stan would even welcome Shelley's arrival) as long as Kyle would kiss him again. Sadly, his parents were not due back until midnight and his grandpa had retired to bed before he and Kyle had arrived home.

Midnight was now drawing close. Stan prayed for his parents to return soon. He had had to give in and move his leg. Kyle's hand now rested on it. All of Stan's consciousness that was not praying for parental interruptions was focused on the patch of flesh underneath his friend's hand, even if it was entirely covered. Later, he would analyse how crazy he was to care so much about a little weight, a little heat, but during the experience it was all he could think about. What did it mean?

There was the click of a lock. Kyle threw himself onto Stan as if it was what he had been poised to do all along and kissed him in a manner Stan thought best described as brutal. It was sloppy, frenzied, needy and entirely wonderful.

"We're going to bed, Stan," his mom called, not bothering to enter the living room. "Have you made up the spare bed for Kyle?" Kyle sulkily pulled back, still sitting on Stan.

"Uh, not yet, mom," said Stan, his mind ablaze with the sight and feel of Kyle's hips resting on his own.

"I'll be fine without, Mrs Marsh!" said Kyle, lightly punching Stan for almost losing the opportunity.

"If you're sure. Goodnight boys!" There was a sound of footsteps going up the stairs. Stan didn't budge, holding out hope for Kyle to resume where they left off.

"I can make you the bed," he said, remembering that Kyle didn't seem to have a sleeping bag with him. Kyle, who was less absorbed by the sight of his friend in a compromising position, stared thoughtfully into space.

"Can we both fit into yours? It might seem more convincing that way."

"Sure!" Stan cursed his eagerness, but Kyle seemed pleased enough by the response. "I don't know if I'll kick or whatever..."

"You didn't when we were kids. We'll be fine."

"You remember what I did when I was asleep?" Stan asked.

"You didn't wake me up. That's enough." Kyle climbed off Stan and stared back at the screen. "Aw, we missed the awesome fight..."

"Want to call it a night after this episode?" Stan managed a yawn. "I'm exhausted."

"Sure." Kyle continued staring intently at the television. Stan gave it a jealous glare and began picking up the night's debris.

With every step they took to Stan's room, Stan's heart seemed to jump three times the height inside his body. They carelessly stripped themselves of their clothes, Stan being careful not to let himself see the sight he so wanted to see.

"Hey, Stan?" Kyle's voice was a whisper placed directly into his ear. His hands rested on Stan's bare shoulders. "Should we bother with boxers or not? I guess not would be more realistic, but if they come in and see us in bed together, then they probably won't care either way..." Stan, who had been contemplating which were his most alluring pair of pyjamas, quickly gave a decision.

"We can wear boxers." The temptation would be insurmountable otherwise. The hands were lifted from his shoulders. He heard Kyle throw back the duvet and climb inside. He swallowed, steeled himself and turned. Kyle was goddamn alluring at any time, but the effect was intensified when he was lying in bed, his bare chest just visible. Stan switched the lights off and hurried to follow him, all hope of keeping his thoughts clean forsaken.

As he wrapped the covers around him, he realised that he was virtually side by side with Kyle. He tried to shuffle over to give his friend space, only to discover himself dangling on the edge of the bed. He pushed himself back onto the bed and found himself practically on top of Kyle, who merely smiled sleepily and limply wrapped an arm around him.

"Uh, dude, falling off the bed here," said Stan. Kyle wriggled over a little and Stan was given sufficient space. He wasn't sure he wanted it. Kyle rolled over and draped an arm over Stan.

"G'night," Kyle mumbled, his voice obscured by the pillow that pressed into his face. Stan debated questioning the clinging. The expected outcome (Kyle taking his arm away) was not worth the low potential for a happy answer.

"Night, Kyle."

--

Stan awoke before dawn had really creaked out over San Francisco. He felt unusually hot and sticky. He moved to sit up, thinking that his parents had put the heating on too high, and found himself constricted by an arm wrapped tightly over his torso. Another arm was flopped over his pillow, loosely encircling Stan's head. Stan smiled to himself and slowly laid down again, careful not to stir Kyle.

He could not fall asleep again, but laid awake, savouring the rare treat of physical contact with his friend. He didn't know if Kyle knew who he was holding or if it was something that had happened whilst he was asleep. In his dreams, Kyle could easily be envisaging a hot girl in his arms.

Kyle yawned into his ear. Stan kept his eyes closed, unsure if Kyle was waking or not. The arm around his waist disappeared, as did the one around his head. The body heat from behind had gone.

Now that Stan had lost the reason for his pretended sleep, he groggily went through the motions of waking up. He glanced over at Kyle, who joined him in sitting up.

"What time is it?" asked Kyle, looking around for a clock.

"It's only eight," said Stan. "You can go back to sleep if you want." Kyle shook his head.

"I'm awake now. Kinda. Let's just vegetate here for a bit."

"Sure. Want the TV on?"

"Yeah." They switched it on and flicked through the typical early morning drivel until they came across some high quality Canadian comedy. This Stan managed to find more absorbing than last night's television, right up until Kyle put his hand on his. After that, all hopes of following the intricate plot and witty repartee dissolved into nothingness. Beside him, Kyle was crying with laughter, his mind evidently fixed on the show and not the (accidental?) touching.

Someone knocked on his door. Kyle responded immediately by draping an arm around Stan's shoulders and resting his chest against Stan. Stan wished that his room was a little darker; Kyle was sure to notice the blood rushing to his face.

"Hello?" he said.

"Billy, it's grandpa. I'm just going to the town hall."

"Sure thing, grandpa." He head the chair wheeling away and his grandpa muttering to himself. Kyle's attention was still entirely on the television. He hadn't yet moved. Stan wondered if he had noticed that grandpa had gone. He didn't remind him.

What seemed a million years later, the show cut to commercials. The spell it had cast over Kyle was lifted.

"What're we going to do today?"

"Not sure..." Stan could no longer contain his curiosity. "You sure you want to sit like that?"

"Yeah. You're pretty comfy and it'll be good if your parents come in." Stan decided to leave it at that. Gingerly, he laid an arm around Kyle, who snuggled up closer. Everyone was right. Kyle was seeming pretty gay. "Your parents in today?"

"Should be," said Stan, entranced by the sight of his bare skin on Kyle's.

"So we should probably stay in. We need to convince them and quickly." Liberace gay, as Kyle once put it. So open that everyone could see it, but closeted enough to deny the truth.

"Yeah. One of my friends suggested we have sex on the kitchen table." Stan awaited Kyle's adamant refusal.

"They'd probably just ground you." Kyle didn't sound offended or jokey. He sounded perfectly serious, in spite of the ludicrous idea. Stan began to suspect shenanigans.

"Dude. I wasn't going to actually do it."

"Oh, yeah, obviously," said Kyle, a little too hurriedly. "So what shall we do?"

"Wanna grab some breakfast after Terrence and Philip and see how it goes?"

"Sounds good." The commercials ended and Kyle's attention returned to the show. Stan tried to tune into the flatulence quips. His brain was out of action, and the part of Stan that had been temporarily put in charge of thinking was ordering him to do very indecent things. The fact that Kyle seemed willing to do just about anything wasn't exactly helping the situation – a situation which was horrifyingly starting to become sticky. As Stan was fretting about the growing problem, there was another knock at the door. The timing in the house was truly impeccable, he thought sourly.

"Who is it?" he called. Kyle, to his surprise, was shifting. He was even more surprised (although he really should have come to expect it) when Kyle turned out to be doing it only to kiss along his neck.

"It's me," his dad said. He opened the door, catching Kyle administering a love bite to Stan's neck. "Uh. Sorry. Didn't think I'd be interrupting anything."

"Well, you are," said Stan, his neck damp and stinging. "Do you mind leaving us to it?"

"Er. We're going shopping soon. Want anything?"

"You have got kosher food in, right?" asked Kyle, resting his head on Stan's shoulder.

"Yeah..."

"Then I think we're okay." Stan waved his father away, but he didn't budge.

"Stan, I don't think your mother will be very happy if you're cheating on the neighbour's kid..."

"He's cheating on me!" said Stan, his temper rising. He found himself enveloped in an embrace with Kyle. He hadn't noticed, or realised, exactly how comforting Kyle's strong arms were around him, or how good Kyle managed to smell even when he'd just woken up. It was nothing like being held by Wendy, who was slight, dainty and just smelled of girl. It was an effort not to look too happy.

"I really don't think Tom is good for him, Mr Marsh," said Kyle, running a hand through Stan's hair lovingly. "I mean, for your first boyfriend to cheat on you must be bad, but for it to be with a girl..." He kissed Stan's forehead. Stan was surprised Kyle's face didn't catch on fire; his face had to be radiating enough heat to melt all the snow in South Park.

"Right. I shall go now. To the store." Randy hurriedly shut the door. Kyle tilted Stan's head to the side and examined the damage he'd caused.

"I don't think you'll need to worry about sending the message to Tom," he said, running a finger over the mark. It stung a little. Stan pressed his own hand to it.

"Is it bad?"

"It's pretty noticeable." Kyle grinned. "If you give me one, your parents will totally get the message too!" Stan leaned in, inhaling Kyle's intoxicating scent again. "Actually, leave it until later. Your mom hasn't seen me yet and your dad was trying hard to not look at us."

--

The opportunity to "gay-out", as Kyle put it, in front of Stan's mom did, seemed to be purposefully evading them. When she and Randy returned from the store, they headed straight for the kitchen, completely bypassing the living room where Kyle and Stan had been poised to make out. All morning, the only person to come into the room was Randy, who exited immediately without saying a word. Luck was not on their side and both seemed to be cursed with a strong obedience to Murphy's Law. Stan supposed living in South Park should have taught them that already and said as much to Kyle.

"Yeah. If we had been trying to hide it, you just know that they'd have seen it all," Kyle sourly agreed.

"Kyle! Stan! Lunch is ready!" They got up. Kyle rammed his hand in Stan's back trouser pocket.

"If this doesn't work," he whispered, "we might have to try the kitchen table idea."


	5. Chapter 5

**Sorry for the wait! And yes, those have been some not so subtle digs at the Twilight series of books. Hope this next chapter continues to entertain!**

--

"Stanley, having Kyle pretend to be your boyfriend won't make us move back to South Park." At times, Stan reflected, his parents could actually be relatively smart. These times seemed to coincide with whenever he wanted them to be dumb. He and Kyle had walked into dinner, Kyle's hand jammed down his trouser pocket, and everyone had noticed. His grandpa had called him a sodomite, Randy had choked on his potato and Sharon had asked him to help her bring some dishes through from the kitchen, which is where he was now.

"But I love him," Stan pleaded. "Mom, it's breaking my heart..."

"Stan, he's straight-"

"No, he isn't!" He blinked, surprised by the conviction in his words. Sharon shrugged her shoulders.

"Even if he isn't, we can't move back now."

"What? Why not? We haven't sold our house yet."

"We have friends here! You have a boyfriend! I have a new job! South Park isn't accepting enough!"

"Dad hasn't found a new job, my boyfriend doesn't like guys and we have friends in South Park!" Stan countered, ticking each item off on his fingers. "We're only renting this place, your old job paid better, we were less at risk of earthquakes..."

"Stanley, we are staying here and that's final!" She shoved a bowl of vegetables into his hands. "Now go take these through and stop teasing yourself with Kyle!"

He grudgingly took the bowl to the table and slammed it down with bad grace. Kyle looked at him, concerned, but Stan shook his head as he sunk down beside him. He'd tell him the bad news later.

"Stan, why don't you invite some of your friends over this afternoon?" Sharon asked, offering Kyle the vegetables. "It'll be nice for Kyle to meet some of your new friends."

"Great. They think I should dump Tom and screw Kyle," Stan said, his temper getting the better of him. Sharon glared at him. He didn't dare look to see Kyle's reaction. "So they'd probably try and engineer that to happen. Sure, I'll ring them after dinner."

"Or how about Tom?" Sharon continued, as though Stan had not said anything. "I'm sure Kyle would like to meet your boyfriend."

"Not really," Kyle piped up. Stan grinned at him gratefully. "He's a douche who's cheating on Stan. I'll only end up kicking his ass." Mrs Marsh ignored him, too.

"I'll call around after lunch and invite him around." They groaned in unison. Kyle nudged Stan under the table with his foot and mouthed, "What happened?". Stan mouthed "Later". They both scarfed their food down and bolted from the table to Stan's room. There, Stan collapsed on his bed, arm draped across his face melodramatically.

"It's over, dude," he groaned. "Even if we convince them we're dating, she won't let me move back. She seems to believe we're rooted here now." Kyle groaned and collapsed next to him.

"Like you weren't rooted in South Park, where you knew everyone and everything and you had lived all of your fucking life?"

"Yeah," Stan said, miserably. He rolled over and curled up next to Kyle. "Dude, I'll never get to go back. Never." Kyle hugged him close and kissed the top of his head.

"You will," he said, desperately. "I'll make sure of it. I'm not letting them keep you here. What did your mom say was holding you back?"

"Friends. Tom. Her new job. South Park being prejudiced." Kyle nodded and tapped his nose thoughtfully.

"Dude, I'm sure we can solve this. I'm already working on the last problem."

"You are?" Stan took hold on Kyle's shirt, clutching at it like straws. "Really? How?"

"I'm organising the first South Park gay pride parade," Kyle admitted. "I wasn't going to say anything until everything was a bit more final, but..."

"Dude!" Stan punched Kyle on the arm in the sort of grateful manner that only teenage boys truly understand. "Really?"

"You bet. Mom's kinda proud of me, but she keeps asking if there's anything I want to tell her." Kyle laughed, but it was a tinkering, off colour laugh. Stan joined him, aware his laugh sounded just as fake. "I'm currently waiting for road permission."

"I love you," Stan sighed, burying his face in Kyle's shirt. "I really do. You're too awesome."

"I try," Kyle said, stroking Stan's head. "You know I want you back. Everything's just lame without you." Stan glanced up at Kyle, grinning.

"I'm glad I make your life worth living."

"You really do," Kyle said, earnestly. Behind them, the door opened and someone coughed. They glared up at the intruder. Tom looked down at them coolly from the door frame. Kyle turned and rested on an elbow.

"Who're you?" he asked, suspiciously.

"Tom," he replied, not moving from his position. "You must be Kyle. Didn't mommy ever tell you it was cruel to play with people's hearts?"

"Didn't mommy ever tell you not to be a fucking douche? How can you keep Stan trapped in this fake-ass relationship?" Kyle sat up properly now, swinging his legs to the edge of the bed, poised to strike should he hear another slight against him or Stan. Stan put his arms around Kyle's neck. Tom gritted his teeth.

"You think I want to be in this?" he hissed, pulling the door closed behind him. "You think that if I had a choice, I wouldn't just date my girlfriend openly, instead of having to waste my time doing gross things with another guy?"

"So you make someone else unhappy? You could date another guy in your situation," Kyle said, lacing his fingers with Stan's. "Don't fuck things up for my best friend."

"Boys!" Sharon called up, preventing the imminent fight. "Come downstairs, I've made you all cola floats!" They shared one last icy glare before together descending the stairs. Sharon handed each a glass filled with coke and topped with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sprinkles. "Why don't you all go watch TV together?" she asked, though it sounded more like an order. "There should be something decent on, we have got over a hundred channels..."

"Yeah, but one just shows fish swimming around in a tank," Kyle pointed out, catching fallen ice cream from the glass with a finger. "All day and all night. Remember, Stan?"

"Oh, yeah! And there are twenty channels in languages neither of us understand-" Stan continued.

"Fifteen channels of fundies telling us to buy their CDs of crap music-"

"Thirteen kids' channels-"

"Have you two actually gone through _all_ of the channels already?" Sharon questioned. They nodded.

"It's good for getting acclimatised to a new place," Kyle said. Stan slurped his float.

"But Stan hadn't touched the TV since we arrived!"

"It's something we always do together," Stan explained as Kyle licked his ice cream. "Everytime either of us has gotten new channels or a new TV, we go through them all. Sometimes we do it when we're bored to keep on top of what we have."

"Are you both aware of how sad that is?" Sharon asked, taking refuge in the washing up. "You must have wasted hours like that."

"It's fun," Kyle insisted.

"Let's just go find something to watch," Tom groaned. "Thank you for the drink, Mrs Marsh." She smiled at him.

"You're welcome, Tom." Stan and Kyle glared at him and marched ahead of him into the living room. He trailed after them, but with Stan taking the end of the sofa and Kyle the middle, he was kept from upholding the visage of being a loving boyfriend. Kyle leaned in and licked Stan's ice cream.

"It's the same as yours," Tom hissed, the knuckles of his glass-holding hand white. "Was that really necessary?"

"Totally," Stan and Kyle said simultaneously. Stan picked up the remote and scrolled through the menu screens.

"Simpsons?" he asked, hovering over the selection.

"Which episode?" Kyle asked.

"First singing clip show."

"I love that episode!" Tom said, smiling in spite of his surroundings. Kyle looked less impressed."I haven't seen it in ages!"

"I've seen in a million times," said Kyle, shaking his head. "Something else."

"Yeah, me too." Stan continued cycling through the menu, smiling as Tom sulked in the corner.

"And I bet you saw it together," he said, dryly. Kyle nodded.

"Most of the time, yeah."

"Do you ever do anything separately?" Tom asked. "Or are you so codependent that you can barely breathe apart?"

"We're completely codependent," said Kyle, putting an arm around Stan's shoulders. "We have to keep in touch several times a day or else we break down completely."

"It's true," Stan confirmed, putting his head on Kyle's chest. "We would be nervous wrecks after one day without contacting each other."

"You didn't seem to feel the same way when you tore his photo up," Tom snorted, snatching the remote from Stan and putting The Simpsons on. Kyle frowned at Stan, wounded.

"You did?" asked Kyle. Stan smiled apologetically and wiped the ice cream from Kyle's mouth.

"It was when I wasn't speaking to you," he said. "I was stupid. I'm sorry. I got another copy made from the negatives, anyway."

"Oh, that's okay." Kyle grinned. "Though, with all the photos of us you already have in your room, I guess you could live to lose one or two."

"How cute," Tom sneered. "Can you keep your kiss and make up session down? Some of us are trying to watch the TV."

"Stan!" Sharon called from the kitchen. "Can you come give me a hand?" Stan sighed and heaved himself from the sofa. His mom gestured to the garbage can, which was on the verge of overflowing or gaining sentience. "Take that out, will you?"

Stan grumbled to himself as he heaved the straining bin bag out, face turned away in a futile attempt not to inhale the toxic smell. He shuddered as a drop of bin juice landed on his foot and held it far out ahead of him as he escorted it from the house and into the trash can outside. Over the fence, Tom's mother observed him.

"That's a big bag," she commented. "The second this week. You are recycling, aren't you?"

"Yeah, yeah," Stan sighed, unwilling to be polite to the person who had spawned his fake boyfriend.

"I might pop by tomorrow to remind your parents that really, most household waste can be recycled or avoided when shopping," she said, shaking her head and turning back to her crops. With great effort, Stan said nothing in response and skulked back into the house.

He returned to the living room. Something was amiss at once. Kyle, who had been leaning close to Tom, suddenly sprang away from him as Stan entered the room, and Tom looked rather too smug for Stan's liking. He took his position on the sofa again, wondering what the hell was going on. As soon as his ass touched the sofa, Kyle climbed on his lap and kissed him on the cheek. His timing was impeccable. Sharon came in the room just as Kyle's lips touched Stan's skin, with Tom raising no protest whatsoever in the corner. Stan could tell from her expression that he was in trouble, though he wouldn't discover exactly how much trouble until the guests had left.

"I'm going out," she said, coolly. "Be good, won't you?"

"We will, Mrs Marsh," Kyle said, smiling innocently at her. She gave one last angry look to Stan before nodding and departing.

"So, Stan, my best friend in the whole world who I shall never ever doubt, what shall we do now?" Kyle asked.

"Oh, go off and fuck," Tom fumed, getting up. "I don't get why you've got to be so obvious about it, but it doesn't look like I can stop you." He chucked a cushion at Kyle. "By the way, your hair is fucking stupid."

"It's a million times better than yours!" Stan yelled, but Tom had already turned away and was walking out of the door. He flipped them off over his shoulder and left the house. Kyle didn't move from Stan's lap, instead watching Tom retreat with a shake of his head.

"God, what a fucking douche. You have to pretend to be dating that guy?"

"Yeah. Dude, not that I'm complaining, but why the hell are you sitting on me?"

"That douche," Kyle said, nodding towards the door Tom had just left through, "tried to tell me that you were trying to trick me into fucking you and that I should back down before I did something I regretted. So I figured that this would be the biggest fuck you I could give him without breaking his face."

"Fucking douche," Stan said, disgusted. "Wanna play Xbox?"

"You know it, dude."

--

They had almost completed Guitar Hero VI on expert mode when there was a knock at the door. They ignored it, being mid-solo on "Greed Killing", and someone else opened the door. They missed the ensuing conversation, but neither could miss Sharon coming into the living room and screaming at Stan to turn the game off. Kyle meekly paused it.

"That was Tom's mother!" she shouted. "He's in tears because you're cheating on him!" They stared at her, flabbergasted.

"He has a fucking girlfriend!" Stan yelled, throwing the guitar controller down. "He has done for about a year! He just doesn't want his parents to know he's straight!"

"Stanley, don't be ridiculous!" she shrieked. "You are banned from dating Kyle! Now go apologise to your boyfriend!"

"But mom-"

"No buts! Have you thought how this will look to the neighbours? No one will be able to trust us, just because you can't keep your hands to yourself!"

"I don't want to date him!"

"Tough luck, Stanley!"

"I'll go break up with him!"

"You do and you're grounded!" Stan pinched the bridge of his nose and counted to ten. His mom continued ranting and raving at him. Kyle put a hand on his shoulder and pulled Stan back protectively from his mother.

"You can't force someone into a relationship and then be surprised when they're not faithful to it!" he shouted. It did not go down well. She continued to shriek at them, finally ordering them both to Stan's room as punishment. They fled. For the second time that day, Stan sunk onto his bed in despair.

"Now what?" he asked, not really expecting an answer. "What the hell can we do now?"

"We'll prove that Tom is straight," Kyle replied, picking up a camera thoughtfully. "We'll catch him with his girlfriend. That'll get you out of dating him, at least."

"Dude, yeah!" Stan sprang up, grinning at Kyle. "How? He doesn't make out with her at parties, or at least not where everyone can see. I guess there's school. He might be eating her face there."

"Okay, that'll probably be best. Get a shot of them. It has to be obviously coupley, you know, kissing and crap. Hugging won't be enough."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Anything else I'll need for the mission?"

"A less obvious camera?" Stan laughed, though Kyle looked serious. "We might as well see what's available, dude. If you get caught once, it'll be much harder to get a second chance." He sat down at Stan's computer and did a quick search. Stan climbed over the bed to get a better look at what he was doing.

"It's kind of worrying how many places cater for this kind of thing," he said, peering at the long list of sites begging to sell them spying equipment. "Is the market really this big?"

"Must be. Hey, they do spy phones." Kyle clicked on the link.

"Dude, we totally don't need a spy phone."

"I know, but they sound cool – wait, that's my model of phone!" Kyle pulled it out and compared the picture with his model. "Dad did give it to me already set up..."

"Dude, there are millions of phones like that. You're getting paranoid. Can we look at the cameras?" Stan took the mouse from Kyle's unresisting hand and found the cameras. "So, mister Bond, what do we want? Look, I could get one in a can of bathroom cleaner!"

"Unless you usually go to school waving a can of bathroom cleaner around, I think that'll be even more suspicious than wandering around with a camera," Kyle said, putting his phone away and taking the mouse back. "Christ, I could have lived without knowing that you can get binocular webcams. That's fucking creepy."

"Dude, you can get bugged fire alarms!" Stan pointed to the screen. "Anything could be bugged!"

"Including chewing gum, ties," Kyle said, still scrolling down the screen, "and sunglasses. This is a really scary website."

"They do have these cameras on sale," Stan said. "The tiny ones."

"You've got to worry about wires, dude."

"And the fact that I'll look like a psychopath if I film things."

"Oh, yeah." Kyle sagged, his dreams of helping a master spy operation crushed. "Guess you'd better be careful, then."

"Yeah. The camera on my phone isn't too bad; I can use that."

"Let me have a look." Stan handed his phone to Kyle. Kyle took a picture of Stan's room and analysed the result, which was a mess of various grey blobs interspersed with a blindingly white light from the window.

"I'm not sure, dude. You're going to have to be careful with this one. If the place you take the photo is is dark, you're not going to prove anything."

"Flash?" Kyle shook his head.

"Too obvious. Hey, take mine. It takes pretty good photos. We can just swap our sim cards." He held out his sleek, shiny, very obviously new phone. Neither of them could keep a phone unscratched for more than a couple of months.

"Dude, no way."

"Dude, yes way," Kyle said, firmly. He put it in Stan's hand and clasped his hands around Stan's. Stan stared defiantly down at Kyle. His grip on the situation weakened as he stared into Kyle's hazel eyes, though he made no move to stop. As if reading his thoughts, Kyle leaned up and pecked Stan on the lips. "Good boy. What shall we do whilst we're being punished?"

"I know what you can do," Stan said, pulling Kyle to the bed. Kyle took position beside Stan, curious.

"And that is?"

"Well, I guess I realised it the first time you went through second grade," Stan began, grinning. Kyle grinned, catching on.

"You caught my reflection in a spoon whilst I was eating cereal?"

"Yeah, baby. I remember thinking 'wow, he's ridiculously good looking. Maybe he can do that to entertain me'." Stan stood up and located the DVD. He waved it at Kyle, who nodded approvingly.

"Do what to entertain you?" Stan popped the DVD in the player and joined Kyle on the bed.

"Be professionally good looking!"

"You is talking loco and I like it." Kyle pulled Stan closer and rested his head on his shoulder. Stan wasn't sure if it was meant to be affectionate or whether his shoulder was just a good headrest. Kyle had claimed as much before.

--

When evening rolled around, Sharon reluctantly conceded that they could be allowed to go to Finn's house for a party. She did, however, add that she would be reconsidering allowing Kyle to visit if she felt they were up to anything inappropriate.

"And," she said, waving a fork at Stan reproachfully, "your father will be setting up the spare bed for Kyle tonight."

"We might not be back tonight," Stan told her. "Finn said we can stay over." They quickly escaped before any more commandments were handed down from on high. They waited outside the house until Karl's bright yellow box of a car pulled up in front of them. He opened the passenger door and viewed Kyle appraisingly.

"Mmm, nice," he commented. "I finally understand why you want to go home so badly. Get in, sweet cheeks." Stan tried not to laugh at Kyle's stunned expression.

"You heard the driver," he told Kyle, sternly. Kyle rolled his eyes and got in the back.

"Finn is going to be all over you, Kyle," Karl said, setting off once Stan had settled in. "He adores cool geeks."

"I'm not a geek!" Kyle protested.

"Sweetie, have you checked out your t-shirt lately? Slogan tops are the gear of trendy geeks nationwide."

"Whatever. Just don't give me a makeover." He poked one of the teddy bears that was crammed in the back beside him. "You like cuddly toys, huh?"

"I won't give you one, but I think Stan wants to give you a facial," Karl said with a snigger.

"Karl, can you do us a favour and just drive?" Stan asked, shooting him a venomous look. Karl pondered the question.

"I guess. I was just breaking him in before we got to Finn's, but if you want poor Kyle to be unprepared..."

"Dude, we should set Kenny on them," said Kyle. "That'd be an interesting match."

"A pervert face off? Sounds awesome."

"We'd have to watch from a distance." They pulled up in front of Finn's house. Karl led the way inside, with Kyle sticking close to Stan, apprehensive of the imminent harassment. Finn opened the door, grinning, a jug of brightly coloured liquid in his hand. Fruit floated on top.

"Hello, hello!" he said, waving sloppily at them. He quickly grabbed hold of the door again. "Come in, come in..." He spotted Kyle and his eyes lit up. "Stan, you have fucking great taste in friends. Bring more in future. Who wants some sangria?"

"Fucking hell, I will," Karl said, taking the jug off Finn before he dropped it. "How much have you had?"

"Like...two glasses? It's really strong." Finn latched onto Karl. "Pour me another..." Karl led him to the kitchen. Despite Karl's assistance, Finn still managed to walk into a wall. Stan and Kyle entered, Kyle glancing about warily.

"You'll be fine," he whispered, taking Kyle's coat and hanging it up. "Don't stress, dude."

"Yeah, Stan, has that worked any of the times you've said that to me?" Kyle asked. "What the hell is sangria?" Stan shrugged.

"Guess we'll find out soon enough. Let's go join the others." They headed into the kitchen, which had suddenly started blasting out cheesy pop tunes. Gary was already slumped against a cupboard, mumbling to himself about how much he loved the guys or pies, Stan wasn't quite sure which. Giles was attempting to dance the can-can, but unless it had been modified to include falling down in recent years, it was safe to say that his efforts were wasted. Karl had been foolish enough to supply Finn with another glass of the sangria, half of which got spilled in seconds as Finn burst into song.

"You know I've been drunk a thousand times," he crooned into his glass. "Mhmm yeah BEST DAYS OF MY LIIIIIFE!"

Phil was the first to realise that they had an unusual visitor. After he had taken about six shots of tequila in succession he finally turned from the counter to grin drunkenly at everyone.

"Staaaan! You caaaame!" He hobbled over and threw his arms around him. "And Kaaaaarl! I looove you! And who is this?" he asked, as he noticed Kyle.

"Kyle. You know, my friend from home? You've been teasing me about him all week?" Stan prompted.

"Ohhhh." Phil nodded and threw his arms around Kyle. "Great to meet youuuu! Wanna drink? Stan, you want one toooo?"

"Okay," Kyle said, trying to wriggle free from Phil's iron grip.

"Sure," said Stan, amused by Kyle's look of panic that only slightly abated when Phil released him.

"Coooooool," said Phil, skipping over to the jug and pouring two glasses of drink, making large puddles on the counter in the process. They took their drinks before Phil had chance to make more of a mess, and started listening in on the current conversation.

"Yeah, and, so, Dominic's hair so totally moves him up the hot guy rankings in our year," Giles said, waving his hands excitedly. "He kind of looks like, you know, that guy, in that film, the one about the singer who faked his own suicide, but that's not the guy I mean-"

"Wha' singer?" Finn asked, picking up the jug and drinking the sangria straight from it.

"The one who starts off as a laaaame folky guy but ends up being all bisexual! Karl, you know, I make you watch it all the time-"

"Yeah, yeah!" Karl pointed at Giles excitedly. "Oh, god, yes, his hair makes him look like the guy, what's his name, something...Wild something..."

"YES!"

"He looks like the Nirvana guy," Gary mumbled. "Cobain."

"Yeah, this guy looks like Cobain, too!" Stan sniffed his drink and recoiled, blinking. Kyle took a tiny sip and coughed. The two met each other's worried gaze.

"Strong stuff," Kyle muttered, watching Finn devour what was left in the jug before turning back to Stan.

"Doesn't surprise me," Stan muttered back. "You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," Kyle assured him. They turned back to the others to find that they were being watched.

"Staaan, we asked you a que-question," said Phil, both hands on the counter to keep himself propped up. "Who'd youuu think's hotter, Dominic or Brian?"

"Uh. Brian. Dominic looks half dead most of the time."

"You suck," said Giles. "And you're wrong. Kyle?"

"What?" Kyle asked, looking hunted. "What've I done?"

"Who'd you think is hooootteeeeer?"

"Having never met either, I really don't think I can judge."

"Oh, yeah." Finn staggered to the fridge and pulled out another jug.

"I have an amazingly amazing idea that will amaze you!" he announced. "Everyone, seats! We're going to play a drinking game!" He ushered them all to the kitchen table.

"What game?" Kyle asked, eyeing the jug warily.

"The name game!" Stan and Kyle looked blank as the others cheered.

"The what?"

"Okay, I say a name of a famous person. Say...Carrie Underwood. The next person would have to think of a name that began with a 'U'. Like, um... Okay, pretend I didn't say her. Pretend I said Michael Jackson, so the person next to me would have to think of someone whose name began with a 'J"! Like Jared Leno! Then it would carry on to the next person."

"But, but, but," Giles interrupted. "If they'd said Janet Jackson, it would go back the other way!"

"You'll pick it up," Karl assured them. "And you do have the advantage of being less drunk than everyone else!"


	6. Chapter 6

Several hours and jugs of sangria later, Stan's friends were slumped over the kitchen table. Phil had fallen asleep on it. Gary was ranting to Giles and Karl about how all reality shows had become even worse in the past five years, but Giles and Karl were too busy groping each other under the table to pay more attention than cursory nods. Finn was half asleep, lazing back in his chair with his eyes closed but occasionally singing along with the background music. It was enough to make Stan want to swear off alcohol. He was relieved that, as Karl had predicted, he and Kyle were sober enough to do well at the game, even if their hosts had been too inebriated to explain it properly. He was also relieved that Kyle kept passing him easy names. Phil had been forced to drink with barely a break to breathe for a full twenty minutes whilst he tried to think of a name that began with a 'U', having been passed Lars Ulrich. Kyle was finally filling Stan in on the South Park news he'd been missing.

"So after you left, there were about a million rumours as to why. The best was that Cartman had gotten high and eaten you when the munchies hit. The weirdest was that you'd been recruited by the MIB to take on a fleet of hostile alien spaceships."

"Didn't people just ask you what'd happened?" Stan asked.

"Yeah, but I wasn't in a great mood, was I? I told them to go fuck themselves, and sometimes their dog too. So that kind of just made more rumours. Besides, what would I say? I didn't know what you wanted people to know."

"Yeah, suppose so. How'd people react?"

"Varied. Some of the guys just forgot about it. Wendy kept hounding Cartman, Kenny and I for info. I think she might have threatened to halt shipments of cheesy poofs into South Park if Cartman didn't crack."

"Bet he scrambled for any info he could give her then."

"Nah. He told her to go back to Woodstock and go cry about flowers dying. But then the axolotl circus came to town and people stopped talking about you so much." Gary stopped, mid-rant, and stared at Kyle.

"What the fuck is an axlottle?"

"Axolotl. Kind of salamander." Gary continued to look confused. "Kind of lizard thing."

"They had a salamander circus?"

"Sort of. They had tanks of them, made them do tricks and stuff, then sold them. But they turned into giant lizards at night and started eating people's couches."

"Your mom must have loved that," said Stan, laughing.

"Huh?" Karl joined Gary in looking confused. "How'd they do that?"

"I don't know, genetic engineering or something." Kyle shrugged. "The army came and shot them all. Cartman still has giant axolotl brains on his ceiling. Kenny got shot by the army by accident."

"Your friend got shot?" Giles patted Kyle's shoulder sympathetically. "That's horrible. Is he all right now?"

"Yeah, he's alive again now. The week after that we had a glam rock festival, so everyone wore lycra and dyed their hair pink or blue. There was glitter everywhere."

"Wonderful!" Giles and Karl chorused.

"What colour was your hair?" Stan asked, smirking. "Pink or blue?"

"Green, actually. But I didn't choose it!" Kyle protested. "Ike mixed the dye in with his shampoo!" Giles and Karl started discussing exactly how amazing bringing glam rock to San Francisco would be, with emphasis on the tight, revealing clothes and sparkles. Gary began thumping the table and insisting that it would be a step away from the amazing musical subculture the city had at the moment.

"Please tell me there are photos."

"No," Kyle said, shattering Stan's hopes swiftly. "Not of me, anyway. And Kenny got crushed by a giant set of lips, so there aren't any photos of him either. Think there might be some of Cartman and Butters playing at the festival."

"God, I can't miss that," Stan said sarcastically. "Cartman in tight, bright clothes. All my wet dreams have come true at once." Kyle yawned.

"Speaking of dreams..."

"You want to go to sleep." Kyle nodded.

"Yeah. We going back to yours or staying here?" Stan checked his watch.

"It's three in the morning. Let's stay." Kyle nodded and they got to their feet. Stan snapped his fingers in front of his friends who were still awake. "We're off to bed. See you later."

"Okay," Karl said, grinning. "Behave, won't you?"

"We'll try our best," Kyle said, rolling his eyes. "Try not to get into fights about San Francisco's musical future, okay?"

Stan waved goodnight to the others and led Kyle up to the bedrooms. Once in the upstairs corridor, he took him into a guest bedroom that Finn had made up should anyone actually want a real bed, after expressing surprise when Stan asked if he should bring a sleeping bag. Apparently sleeping in a conventional manner was an aberration at their parties. Kyle switched the light on, which was just as well. The floor was covered with boxes that would no doubt have tripped them up had they attempted to hop through in the dark. Picking one up, Kyle frowned.

"Dude, who really needs a smoothie, cottage cheese and yoghurt all in one maker?" he asked Stan, who picked up another box.

"The same people who want a pasta press?" he replied. "I didn't even know you could make pasta at home."

Kyle shrugged and set the box down again. He stepped haphazardly over to the bed and began undressing. Stan joined him, then groaned as he realised he had to get back to the light switch. He managed to make a path to the switch, turned the light of and made it back to the bed, only stubbing his toe three or four times in the process. Kyle sniggered, but received just punishment when Stan shoved him over and climbed into his side of the bed.

"What do you think of the guys?" Stan asked, turning to face Kyle even though it was too dark to make any of his features out.

"None of them seem to have any serious psychological issues. It's really weird."

"You haven't seen Gary ranting about low quality cheese," Stan said, laughing. "But yeah, they're way more normal than people in South Park, apart from abusing substances more."

"Yeah." Kyle was quiet. "Stan..."

"Yeah?"

"You do still want to come back, right?" Stan laughed. He stopped when he realised Kyle wasn't joining in.

"How can you even ask that?" Stan rolled his eyes. "Like I'd want to stay here!"

"It's a lot less weird than South Park. You don't like South Park. And you've made friends. Sane ones."

"Yeah, but they're not _you_," said Stan. He put a hand on Kyle's arm."It's still fucked up, like South Park, but I've got no one to talk to who understands that. I need you."

"Thanks." Kyle sounded relieved. He moved closer to Stan and put an arm around him."I really want you back..."

"I want to be back," said Stan, hugging Kyle close to his chest, his bare skin pressed against Kyle's. "I mean it, dude, it sucks without you."

"It can't be how much South Park sucks without you," said Kyle. "I feel like I'm going crazy there. Every day something new and weird happens, and everyone just acts like it's completely normal. Without you, there's no one to agree with me, no one who makes me feel like I'm not a total freak for seeing things rationally. Cartman manages to be a bigger douche than ever, Kenny's too busy trying to get laid to give a crap, Butters is just Butters..." Stan cupped Kyle's face in his hands.

"Kyle. I'll be back. I promise." He sighed. "Trust me, I'm missing you just as much. I still wake up in the mornings, plan what we could do together, then remember we're miles apart. I spend half of my time wondering what I'm missing at home. I ring you and stuff as often as I can, but it's no substitute for actually being with you. Every film I watch-"

"Makes you think of when we watched it together?" Kyle nodded. "I feel the same. I don't want to touch my games, because every one reminds me of when we played them together."

"I even tried reading," Stan admitted. "I didn't really do much reading at home, but I figured it would be easier than doing what we did together. But there was always something that reminded me of you in everything I read."

"Fuck, we really are codependent, aren't we?" They laughed.

"We can't be that bad. My parents haven't even noticed I'm acting differently," Stan said, sourly. "And grandpa just keeps ranting about how he hasn't died yet. I'm glad Shelly's moved out, or she'd be as bad as they are."

"Mom's noticed something. She keeps cooking my favourite things for dinner. Dad keeps bringing me diabetic chocolate. Hell, even Ike has been less of a brat. God, I never thought my family would be less douchey than yours."

"Can I share them?"

"Marry me and they're legally yours." Stan nuzzled Kyle's neck. He could just smell the faintest tinge of alcohol on Kyle's breath.

"Sure thing. Let's go to Vegas."

"Dude!" Kyle's expression still wasn't visible in the dark, but Stan could tell he was grinning. "We should consider that as a fall back option!"

"Except we're still too young to do it without our parents' permission. By the time you're old enough, we'll be in college."

"Oh yeah." Kyle sounded glum once again. "And I guess they wouldn't believe either of us if we said we were pregnant."

"Probably not, dude. Still, I'm flattered that you were considering getting hitched to me," Stan teased.

"I'm not gonna give it up until you marry me," Kyle huffed, blowing Stan's fringe from his face.

"Aw, baby, but I love you. Give daddy some sugar." Kyle shuddered.

"That's sick, dude."

"Be thankful I didn't make some crack about never letting you down." His hair was ruffled by another of Kyle's contented sighs.

"It's a lie, anyway."

"Huh?" Stan frowned, disorientated by the jump in conversation. It didn't help that his body was distracted by Kyle's. "What is?"

"I'd probably let you screw me if you came back to South Park," said Kyle, completely calmly. "You wouldn't have to marry me."

"Dude. You can't be serious." Stan unwillingly pulled back from Kyle. Now the idea had been planted in his mind, there was no hope for him. Kyle wriggled closer again.

"Of course I can." He sounded it, too. "Otherwise I wouldn't have said it, would I?"

"But...dude. You're straight." Supposedly. If he were any less straight, at least in relation to how he acted around Stan, he'd probably be wearing neon pink lipstick and matching ten inch heels. Perhaps not pink, actually, since it wouldn't go with his red hair. Maybe purple. Light purple.

"It'd be worth it if you were back." He groaned. "God, I'm lame. Sorry, dude, I really am far too soppy."

"Kyle," Stan said, hesitantly. "Are you one hundred percent sure that you do like girls?"

"Well, yeah," said Kyle. "Of course I do."

"You don't think it's a little...odd how quickly you've become accustomed to all of this?"

"Er...no?" Stan sighed.

"Kyle, are you sure that you don't like boys, in addition to girls?"

"Yeah. Otherwise I'd have told you."

"You don't think that your easy acceptance to doing...stuff with me suggests something else?"

"No." Kyle sounded less certain now. "I mean, I just really want you back."

"You don't think you're being extra affectionate?" Kyle was quiet, presumably thinking over what Stan had said.

"Yeah, I probably am," he admitted, but he sounded confident again. Stan wished he could see Kyle's face better, see how much was acted. Even better, he'd like to see into Kyle's head, see exactly how those cogs were turning. "I mean, after what Cartman did, I was really shook up," he admitted, his voice low. "I...I keep wondering about what if something did happen to you. I might not get to say goodbye. So...I think I'm keeping you close whilst I can."

"Oh." Stan reached out and pulled Kyle into a tight hug. "Dude. That's..."

"Mushy and crap," Kyle said, laughing and hugging back.

"That wasn't what I was going to say."

"But it's true. It's not bothering you, is it?"

"What?" Stan frowned and shook his head. "You hugging me and stuff?" Kyle nodded, his hair tickling Stan's neck. "No way, dude. I kind of like it. Guess I just got my hopes up a bit."

"Sorry," Kyle sighed. "If I ever do go gay, it'll be for you."

"Feel free to turn anytime," Stan joked. Kyle chuckled and pecked Stan's cheek.

"I'll try, even if you are making it sound like being turned by a vampire or werewolf or something."

Stan laughed. He nipped Kyle's neck lightly, making the other boy squeal and make very futile attempts to push him off.

"There. You've been bitten. Now you have The Gay."

"Oh no! Not The Gay!" Kyle moved his hands from Stan's body to, presumably, his face, feigning horror, though Stan couldn't be sure given the lack of light. "Does this mean I'll have to help mom decorate the house?"

"No, worse. It means you have to do hot, kinky things with guys. Failure to do so will mean your death."

"We can't be having that," Kyle mused.

"No, we can't."

"So...what do I do now I've been given The Gay?" Kyle asked, putting a hand on Stan's shoulder. "Are you going to guide me down this scary path?"

"As if I would let you go down it alone." Stan leaned in and caught Kyle's mouth only through chance. For once, Kyle took a moment to respond, and it wasn't his previous, enthusiastic, confident reaction either. Stan slipped his tongue inside Kyle's mouth, hoping it might provoke more of a reaction. Again, Kyle was slow in his response, yet he gave sounds that indicated enjoyment. Strong, manly hands wove around his back, pulling him in. The only potential owner, assuming Stan hadn't suddenly found himself in a horror film, was Kyle.

He threw analysis aside and let himself be pulled by (presumably) Kyle's hands on top of Kyle himself. Said hands were drifting slowly down his back. He shivered, causing Kyle to break the kiss.

"You okay?" he asked, all concern, as though they had been nothing out of the ordinary. Stan nodded.

"Yeah." He put his hands on Kyle's shoulders and squeezed. "I'm fine. Really."

"That's going on your epitaph if you die on me now," Kyle warned, leaning up to kiss him again. Stan kissed back, making a mental note to look up the word 'epitaph' later on. It didn't sound particularly pleasant and really, he was quite content to let this much more enjoyable path continue, especially if he could confirm Kyle's ailment of The Gay to be critical.

He rolled over, pulling Kyle on top of him and making the other squeal like a girl in the process. He slid his hands down Kyle's chest, teasing the fine strands of hair as he went. He slid a finger into Kyle's boxers and twanged the waistband. Kyle inhaled sharply.

"Are you still ridden with The Gay?" he asked.

"Um. Maybe?" said Kyle. "I'm no expert in the matter."

"Would you like me to get it..._out_ of you?"

"Out? Oh. Um." There was a painful pause before Kyle spoke again, rushed. "Yeah. You'd better."

Stan slipped his hand inside Kyle's boxers. His fingers trembled as he acted. Kyle's gasps seemed to echo in Stan's head. He wriggled under Stan's touch, vocalising no words of encouragement or dissatisfaction. He raised his hips a fraction, then pulled them down sharply. His hand enclosed Stan's and took it away.

"No," he whispered. "No. I think I lost it."

"Oh." Stan withdrew from Kyle, his heart sinking like a stone Titanic. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Kyle said, though he lacked conviction. "Night."

"Night, dude..."

--

Stan couldn't safely state how well he'd slept. He was reasonably sure that he had drifted off occasionally, unless his watch had turned into a random number generator overnight. He was even more sure that he had spent hours staring at the ceiling, watching it develop from pitch black to slightly visible to cracked and uneven. Kyle lay beside him in the bed, unmoving, the whole time. Stan didn't know if he slept or not; he didn't dare do so much as whisper his name, and Kyle had faced away from him the whole night long. It was a far cry from the previous night's cuddles. It was unrecognisable from the nights they had spent, all their lives, whispering to each other from dusk until dawn.

Kyle finally rolled over, smiling, and hooked his fingers into the corners of Stan's mouth in order to force a smile out of his friend. Stan made a show of disgust, though really he felt drunk with relief.

"Morning," said Kyle, removing his fingers and wiping them on the bed covers. "Or afternoon. Whatever."

"Morning," Stan said, tapping his watch. "It's only ten." Kyle grabbed Stan's wrist and checked for himself.

"It's only _just_ gone ten?" he asked, incredulously. "I thought it was early afternoon!"

"Nope. You up to walking home?" Kyle nodded.

"You think your friends are conscious?"

"I wouldn't even bet on them being alive." They got out of bed, stretching and yawning, and clothed themselves again. Stan did not dare raise any questions and Kyle seemed unwilling to bring the issue up and so the mystery of Kyle's mind went unsolved.

They walked out, the houses shielding them from the worst of San Francisco's sea breeze. Kyle chattered easily, but Stan, who was working off very little rest, could only provide monosyllabic replies. After about twenty minutes of this lopsided conversation, Kyle pulled Stan down onto a handy bench.

"I'm sorry," he said, before Stan could ask what was going on. "I...I just suddenly felt like what we were doing was wrong, and that I was wrong. Then I started panicking and...and..." He shuddered and shrugged, but offered a small smile as peace offering. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Stan replied, as his hopes were thrown into a blender. "I'm sorry I put you in that position-"

"Don't be!" Kyle interrupted, taking Stan's hands and squeezing. "Please, dude, don't beat yourself up. Please? I fucked up, not you."

"But I-"

"Acted on the information you'd been given. I just deviated from expectations." He frowned, looking genuinely annoyed with himself. "Seriously. Forgive me?"

"Dude. Like you even need to ask that." He smiled and Kyle hugged him. "Seriously, I wasn't pissed. I'm just exhausted."

"Awesome!" He stood up again, offering a hand to Stan. Stan accepted the assistance and began to lead the way once more. "You need to take a nap or anything once we get in?"

"I'll sleep once you're gone."

"Okay. How about some vegetating in front of the TV?" Stan smiled sleepily.

"Fuck yeah."

--

Too soon the time for Kyle to leave came. Kyle had hauled his belongings into his bag, only getting the mess of crumpled items to close by sitting on it to squish them down. Even so, there was a definite aura of Kyle about the place. Stan's messy room had sporadic touches of Kyle's selectively organised mind. The books were back in the bookcase and his comics were in order. The video games were back in their respective boxes, rather than in the nearest container that they would fit in to. Then, conversely, was the fact that Kyle's belongings kept popping up unexpectedly around the house.

"Kyle," Stan had asked, as they had lazed before the television. "Why is your watch on my bookcase?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Kyle had snorted, waving his bare wrist at Stan. "My watch is right...oh, wait..."

But now as many of Kyle's things as they could find had been shoved into his bag and they were in the car, driving to the airport. Kyle was fiddling with the radio, evidently not finding the popular Californian music unsuited to his taste. But then, Stan remembered, smiling, Kyle had once spent half an hour fiddling with the radio in Colorado, hunting for a rap station, and when he found one he had switched the radio off dismissively because it was too mainstream.

"I wonder if I can smuggle you in my baggage," Kyle mused. Stan laughed.

"Dude, you seen the size of that bag? The only way I'd fit in is in pieces." Kyle looked Stan up and down. "That was not a suggestion!"

"Aw." Kyle sighed. "I'm sure we could sew your limbs back on later..."

"No."

"We could put your head in a jar, like on Futurama."

"No."

"You could date Lucy Liu's head!"

"I'm gay!"

"Well, she wouldn't have any genitals..."

"No, Kyle." Kyle sighed and gave up on the radio.

"Fine," he said, sullenly. "Stay in one piece. See if I care." They arrived at the airport. Stan parked up and they walked inside.

"You have got your ticket, right?"

"Yes, mom." Kyle looked and sounded subdued. "And I packed my toothbrush. I think." They reached the long queue for check in. Kyle rummaged through his bag for his ticket. The mountain of books and crumpled clothes that he had carelessly thrown in was evidently slowing his search. Stan helpfully took hold of some of the things to allow Kyle access to the deep recesses of his bag, where his crumpled ticket laid. They reached the front of the queue (it was amazing how long it took Kyle to find things he found uninteresting, it really was) and the bored assistant handed Kyle his boarding card whilst conversing with the frizzy haired girl next to her about the latest episode of the latest vacuous teen drama.

"It's not like we won't see each other for ages," Kyle said suddenly, apropos of nothing, as they walked towards the security gates. "I'll be back next weekend."

"Yeah, and that's no time at all." They stopped before the gates.

"Yeah." Kyle nodded. Stan smiled and hugged him.

"Text me when you get back," he said. "Or get online. Or something."

"Sure." Kyle grinned weakly. "Try and live without me for the duration of the flight, won't you?"

"I think I can manage for an hour or so." He released him. Kyle walked away, waving until the last possible second.

Stan waited until he could see Kyle no longer before turning and leaving. He drove home, numb, acting on auto-pilot. He headed straight to his computer and logged into messenger, ready for when Kyle got back to South Park. The email notification pop up caught his eye. Sixty new emails was a bit higher than expected, even accounting for the accepted level of spam that snuck in every day. He clicked it and scrolled through the headings. 'Oh my GOD!!' from Bebe caught his eye first, followed by 'WHAT??', 'WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME??', 'DID YOU EVER CHEAT ON ME WITH KYLE??' and 'DID I TURN YOU GAY??' from Wendy. Then there was 'I knew it!' from Kenny, 'Fags' from Craig, 'Is it true??' from Powder... Finally, he latched onto the one which should explain them all: 'Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!' from Cartman.

_I played them the messages! Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah! Everyone thinks you're boning! Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah! _


	7. Chapter 7

"Dude, you get Cartman's email?" Stan asked, the instant Kyle rang him. His computer screen was still showing his inbox. In the space of one cross country flight, he had yet to read all of the emails he had been bombarded with."And emails from half the class?"

"Er. Since I'm in a coach right now, not yet. What's the fat fuck done now?"

"Everyone knows I'm gay. And they think you are too."

"Great!" Stan blinked. Kyle hadn't been sarcastic. "You shown your mom them?"

"No. Not yet. But your mom might hear about it..."

"Oh. Yeah. Shit." There was a pause and Stan just knew that Kyle was pinching his nose. It brought a small smile to his face, knowing just how similar they had grown to be. "I'll...have to deal with that when it comes to it. But it might be good to show to your mom!"

"Yeah...but why'd he do it? Think it was just to make us miserable?" This was the question that had been bothering Stan the most. As aggravating as this had the potential to be, it hardly ranked on Cartman's usual scale of annoyances.

"I don't know, but I'm sure we'll find out soon enough," Kyle sighed. "Hey, if I've been thrown out of the house, can I come live with you?"

"You can come live with me anyway," Stan instantly replied. "Hell, screw going back there, just come here again. It'll be fun."

"Oh, god, what if they're draining my college fund as we speak? What if they disown me? Oh, fuck, if they disown me, do I get to keep my name?" Kyle's voice was steadily rising in pitch and volume.

"Dude, they won't have disowned you!" Stan told him, although he wasn't sure Kyle had heard. He was still rattling off a long list of other things his family might have decided to do now that he was supposedly gay.

"They'll have sold my car. And all my stuff. My room will already have been repainted and they will deny ever having a son named Kyle -"

"No, they really won't!"

"And I'll have to go live on the streets and become a whore to survive -"

"I already said you could live with me!" Stan yelled, visions of Kyle barely dressed on a street corner eagerly lining up inside his mind. "Prostitution is not necessary, dude!"

"Promise?" Kyle asked, ignoring the looks from his fellow passengers and people whispering about calling white coated men.

"Promise. I mean, if you really want to be a whore, I'll take you on, but it's not a requirement."

"If I lose my surname, can I have yours?" Whether Kyle was registering the romantic implications of taking on a new surname was doubtful. Kyle's blind panics tended to ignore the reasonable.

"Yes, Kyle. If you lose your surname, you can have mine."

"Ah ha!" Stan groaned. That wasn't a good sign. "So you do think I'll lose my surname!"

"Goddammit, Kyle, how are you top of the class in Critical Thinking? You won't lose your surname or anything."

"You know what my mom is like! She doesn't obey the laws of logic!" There was a good point there, Stan knew, but he still suspected Kyle was overreacting. For a start, Mrs Broflovski would never blame one of her own children for something, at least not when she could find a suitable scapegoat. Stan had a horrible suspicion that if she was going to react badly, she might pick him as her scapegoat. After all, they had always done everything together. Turning gay would probably just be another item on the list for her.

"She wouldn't go as far as chucking you out or anything, dude, even if she isn't happy about it."

"I guess not," said Kyle, though he sounded far from certain. "I'll ring you when I do know what's she's like."

--

Kyle creaked the door open, half expecting his mom to be prowling in wait for him. Finding the coast clear, he nervously tiptoed inside. The absence of bin bags bulging with his belongings was a welcoming sight.

"I'm home," he called out.

"Kyle!" Ike's disembodied voice was soon joined by the boy himself as he raced down the stairs. "Dude, why didn't you tell me? Did you have a nice dirty weekend?"

"Awww," Kyle groaned, pinching his nose for the second time that day. "That is so not funny. Where's mom?"

"I'm here, bubbe," his mother said, her knitting trailing behind her. She was smiling, which suggested that she wasn't planning to throw him out just yet. Perhaps she was lulling him into a false sense of security until his room had been completely cleared out. "How was Stan's?"

"Um, fine. Mom, can I talk to you?"

"You're talking to her right now," Ike pointed out, grinning. Kyle scowled at him.

"Alone."

"Fine, fine." Ike held his hand dramatically to his forehead. "I can tell when I'm not wanted."

"Really? How come you're still living at home?" Ike flipped Kyle off behind their mother's back and headed back upstairs.

"That was unnecessary, Kyle," Sheila said, waving a knitting needle at him in reprimand.

"Maybe. Listen, mom, Cartman's started a rumour. About me and Stan."

"Oh, yes, I heard it." She calmly did a few stitches. Kyle stared at her in horror. He wondered if the skip had already been hired to take his now unwanted possessions, or if Ike had merely claimed them all.

"You – you did?"

"Well, of course. Eric rang me up to tell me."

"It's – it's not – I'm not gay!" Kyle protested, wringing his hands nervously. "I'm totally straight!"

"Of course, bubbe."

"I like girls – wait, you believe me?" Kyle tried to backtrack, thrown by this unexpected cog in the works.

"Yes, I believe you're heterosexual." She continued knitting serenely. "So what did you want to talk to me about?"

"Um, nothing. I'm going to go upstairs. To my room." He waited, anticipating her to suddenly triumphantly yell that he couldn't, because his room had been repossessed. Nothing came. "And I'm going to ring Stan. But not because I'm gay!"

"Have fun." She retreated back to the living room. Kyle watched her depart, stunned at his good fortune, then ran up the stairs to his room. He threw his bag into a corner and sunk down onto his bed. He tried not to think about how it now seemed too big for him as he rang Stan.

"How'd it go? Still got your surname?" Stan asked him, picking up on the first ring.

"And my room. Dude, she doesn't believe it! She _said_ she believes I'm heterosexual!" He couldn't help grinning.

"Really?" Stan sounded far too surprised, but Kyle didn't mind.

"Yeah! She didn't question me at all! It's amazing!"

"Not at all? Did you get on a plane to a parallel universe or something?"

"Maybe!" His phone – or rather, Stan's, since he'd lent his own to Stan - bleeped loudly in his ear. "Ouch. The phone just bleeped. What does that mean?"

"If you pull it away from your ear from a second and look at the display, it'll probably tell you," Stan replied dryly. Kyle did as he was told.

"Kenny's ringing me. Think he wants to disown me?"

"I don't know, dude, but I bet he'll happily take away all of your stuff."

"Probably. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Sure. Later, dude." Stan hung up and Kyle pressed a few buttons experimentally. Whatever he did must have worked, because Kenny's call was successfully answered.

"You back from your honeymoon?" Kenny asked.

"It wasn't a honeymoon and I'm not dating Stan."

"Sure you aren't, pillow-biter. Wanna go play basketball?"

"I'm not a pillow-biter!" He paused, considering Kenny's invite. "You...still want to hang out?"

"Sure. It's not like it's a real surprise or anything."

"Kenny, I'm not dating or fucking Stan!"

"Whatever, man. See you on the court in ten."

--

Kyle was surprised how accepting his friends were of his supposed homosexuality. Sure, he had a number of sexuality oriented insults thrown at him, but they were guys. Insult each other was what they did. And apparently, the idea that he was boning another of their friends was of no more note than the fact that Butters was a wuss, that Token was rich or that Cartman was a bigoted fatass with a whore for a mom. He had reported this back to Stan, who had in turn reported it to his mom, who merely snapped at him to stop being so ungrateful. And the world kept turning and Kyle went to school for the first time as a purportedly gay boy.

"Kyle, can I have a word with you?" Bebe asked him at lunchtime, seizing his arm and dragging him out of the cafeteria. Kyle tried protesting, but suddenly he was surrounded by girls, all pushing him along.

"No, I – I'm going to hang with the guys," he argued. Powder shook her head.

"You can pound their man-meat later. In here." He was thrust into a classroom. Behind him, the door was locked. Several pairs of eyeshadowed eyes were fixed on him. Bebe shoved him onto a chair and, with Annie's assistance, quickly locked his hands too tightly behind him in a pair of handcuffs. The cheap fluff grated against his skin.

"What the hell?" he growled. Wendy, who was stood by a CD player, nodded and pressed a button. The room filled with Hanson's infamous song about bops. He yelled in panic and tried to prise his hands free. He had to cover his ears. He needed protection from this.

"How long have you been dating Stan?" Wendy demanded, striding over with a book in hand.

"I'm not!" Kyle protested, writhing in his seat. "Really, I'm not! I'm totally straight!"

"Yeah, right!" Bebe interjected, angrily, smacking him around the head. "You turned me down to go to the dance last year!"

"I hate dances! And that's a really straight thing to hate!"

"You stayed home with Stan! You stopped him coming with me!" Wendy said, shrilly. "How long have you been trying to seduce him?" Kyle stared at her, mouth open.

"I was never trying to seduce him!"

"Just because Cartman wouldn't have you-"

"Cartman? CARTMAN?"

"I expect you want us to believe that it was just a misunderstanding, right?" Bebe asked, moving from behind Kyle to come stand by Wendy, arms folded. "You're going to claim we've all got the wrong end of the stick-"

"You HAVE!"

"Oh yeah?" She nodded at Red, who turned the volume up on the CD player. Kyle screamed as his eardrums were pounded by the cheesy notes.

"I'm not dating Stan!"

"So you're engaged?" Bebe demanded. She reached into her purse and pulled out a device Kyle had never seen before. She held it to her eyelashes and clamped down. He jumped back in his seat.

"What the hell is that thing?"

"Something we'll be using on you if you don't get very helpful, very soon." She advanced, holding it out before her like a knife. He shrunk back in his chair.

"I'm really, honestly, truly not dating or doing anything else with Stan," he said, pushing his chair back in retreat with his feet.

"Think he's telling the truth?" Wendy asked Bebe, biting her lip in thought. "Get his phone."

"What're you going to do with that?" Kyle asked, eyes wide.

"Check your story. Where is it?"

"Why would I tell you that?" She nodded at the CD player, which rose in volume once more.

"Fine! Fine! It's in my jacket pocket!" he babbled. It was seized. Bebe tossed it over in her hand, frowning.

"Get a downgrade or something?" She pressed a few buttons and sighed. "What have you got Stan listed under?" Her lip curled into an unpleasant smirk and Kyle cringed, remembering what Stan had jokingly changed his entry to on his phone. "Oh, I see." He could hear a dialling tone. She held it to Kyle's mouth, which had become very dry, as he heard Stan's voice say, 'Hey, dude. What's up?"

"Ask him if he's thinking of you right now," Wendy hissed, folding her arms and watching Kyle carefully.

"Hey. You. You thinking of me?"

"Uh, I am now you called. Was that what you wanted me for?" Wendy shook her head.

"Ask if he's thinking of you _naked._" Kyle wrinkled his nose in disgust. The back of his neck was pinched by long nailed hands that scratched his skin.

"Ow!"

"Kyle?" Stan said, sounding mystified. "You okay, dude?"

"Ask him!" Wendy hissed.

"Stan, we're not dating, are we?" Several hands seized him all over and began pinching.

"Nooo..."

"Thanks." He smirked at Wendy, who continued to scowl down at him.

"Is this about the handjob thing, dude?" The smirk slid off his face.

"Yes, that was a weird conversation!" he gabbled. "Man, we do talk about some weird shit, don't we? Speak to you later, my totally platonic best friend!"

"Kyle-"

"I'll talk to you later!"

Wendy snatched the phone from Bebe and held it to her ear, the look on her face filling Kyle with dread. He wondered if he was going to be shot into the sun.

"Care to elaborate on the 'handjob thing'?" she asked, sweetly.

"Wendy?!"

"The one and only. I noticed that you didn't email me back."

"I've, uh, been busy, with...stuff..."

"Yes. Stuff involving handjobs?"

"It was a conversation we had! I thought it might have freaked him out!"

"So you're denying that you're dating Kyle?"

"I wish," Stan said, sounding heartfelt. "The guy's straight, Wendy."

"He's down as 'Super Sexy Best Friend'!" Bebe interrupted.

"That's Stan's phone," Kyle explained. "He..."

"You're...you're not straight?" Wendy asked Stan.

"No, I'm gay," Stan admitted. "...sorry?" Wendy snapped the phone shut and chucked it over her shoulder to Bebe, who tossed it onto Kyle's lap.

"Take the handcuffs off him," Bebe said, turning away and laying a hand on Wendy's shoulder. "Hey, it's okay, honey..."

There were two clicks and Kyle's hands were released. He pocketed his phone and rubbed the red marks on his wrists where the cuffs had aggravated his skin. As he exited the room, he threw dirty looks at his former jailers, but they had all crowded around Wendy. His usefulness had expired in their eyes.

--

Over in San Francisco, Stan was still holding his phone out, but he had no intention of calling anyone. He was loitering behind the bleachers, watching Tom snuggle close to Alison through the gaps between the benches. The pot pie he'd eaten for lunch was threatening to expel itself from his stomach, but as yet they had done nothing that would show up as questionable once shrunk down to stamp size. It didn't help that he knew that if he was caught, his ass would be heavily kicked. It would probably be kicked when he'd gotten his evidence, too, but by then he wouldn't care so much.

Tom inched closer to Alison, ran his hand through her hair, leaned in to kiss her... Stan held the phone up, his hand shaking, and clicked the button as their lips touched. The resulting shot was darker than he would have liked, but the two people were clearly recognisable. He grinned madly to himself and ran off before he could be caught.

--

Stan waited in the living room until his mother came in from work, then leapt up and ran to the door. The phone was still out in his hand, photo at the ready.

"What is it, Stan?" she asked, wearily, spotting his over-eager face. "What do you want now?"

"I can prove Tom's cheating on me," he trilled, thrusting the phone into her face. She frowned.

"That's not your phone."

"No, it's Kyle's," he said, impatiently. "His has a better camera, so he lent me his. But as you can see, the gay kid next door is not gay at all. Look, it even has today's date on it. Can I break up now?"

"Oh, no," she groaned, taking the phone from him. "Stanley, why do you have to make problems with our neighbours? We'll be living here for a long time; we have to stay on good terms with them..."

He snatched the phone back from her and jostled past her through the door. Appealing to her had failed. Attempting the same with his father would be similarly futile. There was no point even considering grandpa. He went to Tom's house and beat on the door, ignoring his mother calling him to come back. Tom's mother opened the door.

"Stan," she said, coolly. "Are you here to apologise to Tom?"

"Nah, I'm not. Here." He held the phone to her face. "That's your son. Kissing a girl. At school. Today. We're through, okay? I'm done pretending that I'm his boyfriend." He turned away. She didn't call out to him, but instead directed her following shout inside her house.

"Tom! You said you really were gay this time!" she screamed. Stan didn't know what that was about, nor did he care. He was finally free. He retreated to his room, feeling that at last, improvement was forthcoming.

--

"Hello?" Kyle said, picking up Stan's phone, which had been ringing incessantly for the past hour. Curiosity had finally won out. He wished they had remembered to switch SIM cards, although not as much as he wished that the person listed as 'Douchinator' would cease ringing him. Between those two wishes, he wished that Stan's phone made it easier to block numbers.

"...You're not Stan," the Douchinator observed.

"Congrats."

"Who are – no, let me guess," the Douchinator said. "You must be Kyle, that boy he's completely obsessed with. God, you've gone so far as to swap phones? That's sickeningly twee."

"Tom?" Kyle guessed. "How come you're trying to ring Stan? Want to moan about the stick up your ass or something?"

"I wanted to tell him that he's dead for what he did," Tom said.

"And this would be...?" Kyle could guess, but he didn't want to reveal anything if Stan hadn't acted on the plan yet.

"Getting me and my girlfriend into trouble," Tom growled. "Proving that we're...we're..."

"Fucking?"

"Dating," Tom corrected with a hiss.

"And now you plan to exhume Stan? That's not cool, dude, not one bit."

"I meant I will kill him socially," Tom explained. "He's outed a kid. That's not cool, no matter the sexual orientation."

"But you were cheating on him. Beside, his friends are totally going to take his side."

"That's what you think." Tom hung up. Kyle blinked, confused, and rang Stan to tell him the news.

--

Stan, like Kyle, had not taken Tom's threat seriously. It was one thing to reveal someone as being gay to their unknowing and potentially homophobic parents, but it seemed another thing entirely to reveal them as being straight. In accordance with this belief, he'd waited outside his house to walk to school with some of the others. No one appeared. He assumed that he'd missed them, and, having waited until the last possible moment, hurried to school alone.

He passed Finn in the corridor, giving him a wave and a grin, but Finn appeared not to notice him. That was fine. Finn was extraordinarily popular and tended to be surrounded by people at any given time. He was absorbed in conversation. There was no reason for him to worry.

He caught sight of Gary, who was sticking up a photograph of a young James Dean into his locker. Stan cut through the crowd and tapped him on the shoulder. Gary tilted his head enough to see who it was, then resumed his task without a word of greeting.

"Dude, what's up?" Stan asked, although he was starting to have suspicions. "Sorry I skipped out on you guys last night; Kyle has my phone and he didn't notice the messages until late."

"We were glad you weren't there, you outer," Gary spat, spinning around and pushing Stan in the chest. He stumbled backwards, blinking in surprise. No one around them paid any heed.

"Dude, he was just a manbag. Who was totally cheating on me!" Stan protested. "You said yourself he was an utter douche!" Gary slammed his locker shut.

"You wouldn't understand," he hissed. "You're an outsider. You don't know what it's like."

"Gary, I was fucking outed yesterday! I got my best friend tortured because of it!"

"So you should realise what you've done!" Gary snapped. "Fuck you, Stan!" He stormed off. Stan neglected to follow him; his chances of not being pushed around some more seemed slim. He sought out a more reasonable audience.

He didn't catch Karl alone until third period, where they had Geography together. He hurried over to Karl's desk and took him by the shoulders. Karl swatted his hands away and started rummaging through his bag.

"Karl, dude, I need to talk to you-"

"No doubt you do," Karl said, acidly, still not looking at Stan. "But I'd rather not talk to you. Piss off."

"Dude, Tom's a douche! Why do you care?"

Karl slammed the textbook down on the desk, only missing Stan's fingers by a hair's breadth – and judging by Karl's disappointed expression, he hadn't even meant to be that lenient. He recovered quickly and shot Stan a withering look.

"Because, Stan," he said, his voice low. "Our parents are fickle. One day they want us to be gay, the next bi, the next polyamory, the next – I don't know. But we need the straights. We validate their fake relationships today, they'll fake ours tomorrow. But now you've fucked that up, jeopardising us all. Now we've betrayed them, in their eyes, they might decide to get revenge when we next need them. Maybe they'll still play along. Maybe. But we can't guarantee that anymore."

Stan gaped at him, lost for words. The rest of the class filtered in, all wearing different colours, different logos, using different words – the sole fact that they all possessed in common was that none gave Stan a second glance. At least, not a friendly second glance. He took his seat in silence, not bothering to protest that he hadn't known of the special alliance. He was never going to succeed in convincing everyone.

He kept his head bent down throughout the lesson. A high pitched bleeping from his bag swept his cloak of invisibility aside and all eyes turned to him.

"It's nice you're so popular, Marsh," the teacher said, coolly, though the irony burned Stan. "But phones off in my class."

"Sorry," Stan mumbled, but he checked the message first. It was from Kyle and he needed a friendly message. He was sorely disappointed:

'Bad news, dude. Cartman's decided to brave San Francisco with Kenny. They're planning to camp in your backyard if there's no room inside.'


	8. Chapter 8

San Francisco friends lost, Stan actually looked forward to seeing his old South Park friends, even if he dreaded whatever trouble Cartman's unstoppable hatred would cause. It would be a relief to be around people who didn't play according to the crazed logic of the San Francisco rulebook. A rulebook which hadn't come with the house, incidentally, nor tucked away in any welcome baskets they received.

His parents were less pleased about their arrivals, although this was largely because they felt Stan didn't deserve such a treat after ruining their relationship with the neighbours. On the other hand, it was less effort to simply sniff 'fine' and let Stan get on with it. So get on with it he did. He meticulously planned every minute of their weekend – it wasn't as if he had friends at school to talk to, or anything exciting to do in the evenings – and hoped it would be enough to keep them all out of trouble.

He knew, even as he hoped, it was completely futile, and it would be a success if they didn't all end up making national news for some horrendous and embarrassing crime.

When Friday rolled around, he sat in an uncomfortable airport seat, his attempts at lounging being constantly thwarted no matter which way he moved. Cold metal numbed his ass and jabbed into his arms if he dared to use the armrests. He wondered if certain firms specialised in making uncomfortable chairs, to be used only in airports and train stations around the country. Maybe it was to dissuade vagrants.

His train of thought was hoisted off course by the sight of a bright red afro running in his direction. He leapt to his feet, collided with the owner in a half-tackle, half-hug hybrid, and remembered that Kyle wasn't alone this time.

"Hey, Kenny. Hey, fat-ass. Did you decide risking catching the gay was worth trying to exterminate the hippies?"

"I'm immune to the gay. Being around your faggy Jew boyfriend is enough inoculation for me," Cartman retorted. Stan wrested his gaze back from Kyle, where it kept falling – totally the fault of the blatantly new jeans he was wearing, which practically demanded his attention – and noticed that Cartman was dressed as a ghostbuster. He had some device strapped to his back, and Stan dreaded learning what it was for.

"Not gay. Not his boyfriend. Need coffee," Kyle said, stifling a yawn with apparent difficulty. "I see coffee. Go get coffee. Come with." He dragged Stan by the arm in the direction of a famous coffee chain.

"Not a San Francisco coffee place!" Cartman hissed, grabbing Stan's other arm. "It's a breeding ground-"

"I'm in," Kenny announced, pushing them all in the direction of the coffee. "I like breeding grounds."

--0--

After an hour of caffeine, sugar, Cartman's hatred of everything, Kenny's sexual innuendo being applied to everything, and Kyle rounding everything off with a healthy dose of sanity and sexiness, Stan remembered what it was to be happy with friends again. Already his schedule had been proved superfluous – at this time, they were supposed to be returning to his house after doughnuts on the pier – but he couldn't care anymore. One coffee turned into two and two would have turned into three if Kenny hadn't chosen to hit on a waitress by drawing a crude sketch on a napkin and passing it to her as she collected their empty mugs. They departed hastily, Kyle and Stan yelling at Kenny for being a dick, Cartman yelling at him because she'd had dreadlocks, which, apparently, were the mark of a level 8 hippie. They took a taxi back to Stan's. He didn't trust Cartman and Kenny in the presence of natives any longer than was necessary.

"Mom, dad, my friends are here," he yelled as they entered the house. He led them straight to his room. Kenny stared at the walls and sighed in disgust; Cartman did the same whilst looking out of the window.

"No naked chicks. It's not a real room, dude."

"Hippies. Out there. It's not natural. It's just wrong."

"Cartman, you knew there were hippies here. Kenny, lots of rooms don't have naked girls on the walls. It's fairly common," Stan said, pushing belongings off the bed so they could sit down.

"It's not common for teenage guys to not have naked chicks on the walls," Kenny countered. "You, Kyle and Butters are the only ones I know who don't. Which makes sense..."

"Goddammit, Kenny, I am not gay," Kyle groaned, picking up a ball and throwing it from one hand to the other. "Neither is Butters."

"How do you know? Tried flirting with him?"

"Where am I sleeping tonight?" Cartman interrupted. "I am not sleeping with you or Kyle. You'll sleep-rape me."

"You're the only one with a history of sleep related sexual harassment, Cartman," Stan reminded him. "Didn't you bring a sleeping bag?" Cartman snorted dismissively. Stan sighed. "I'll get dad to find the spare sleeping bag. Kenny, did you bring yours?"

"Yeah. I brought a double." They all turned to stare at him. Kyle's ball fell to the floor. "In case I bring a chick back. Hippies are easy, right?" Stan pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Kenny, you are not, I repeat, not, bringing girls back here," he groaned.

"Why? Aren't your parents cool with it?"

"...I don't bring girls back. Or boys, before you ask."

"What the hell?" Kenny jumped off the chair he had started slouching on and shook Stan by the shoulders. "Dude, the best thing about being gay – that I've heard – is the amount of easy sex, and you're not seizing this sexy opportunity for all that it is worth?" Kyle rolled his eyes and picked up the ball again. Cartman turned away in disgust and glared out of the window.

"Hiiiippiiiies," he hissed, quietly.

"Believe it or not, Kenny, we are not all complete horndogs who are just in it for the sex-"

"And Kyle doesn't like you cheating on him, I guess," Kenny mused.

"Kenny, we – are – not – dating."

"Fine. Handjob buddies? 'Cause I know you've done that." Stan's eyes flicked to Kyle for a millisecond. Had he told? Had he suffered some brain injury that made him spew out everything potentially incriminating?

"Kenny, just because Stan used the word handjob on the phone to me, it doesn't mean we have done it to each other. Ever." Kyle threw the ball at Kenny's head. "Otherwise you'd be the biggest and gayest whore of all."

"Whatever. If either of you gets gay with the other, I will puke my guts out," Cartman announced. Kyle's eyes lit up.

"What? Really?" he asked, delightedly. "So we'd never have to hear, see or acknowledge you ever again?"

"Shut your Jew mouth," Cartman said, but without his usual venom. He was making some notes on a pad of paper. Stan craned his neck to get a better look, but Cartman quickly put it away. "So, what's for dinner?"

--0--

The cool breeze of San Francisco night wind on their faces, they wandered aimlessly around the city. At least, in Stan, Kenny and Kyle's minds, it was aimless. Cartman kept screaming if they made a turning he didn't approve of, but Stan just attributed that to Cartman being a fucking bitch and ignored him.

"Relax, fat-ass," he would say. "We're going the right way for the ice cream." And Cartman would pout and making whining noises, but none of them cared. After a while of this, in what seemed to be a perfectly normal street, Cartman suddenly ran like Shakey's Pizza was having a free all you could eat buffet. Kyle automatically darted after him and Stan made to dart after Kyle, but Kenny held him back.

"Let them go," he said, dragging Stan in the direction of the sparkling lights of the pier. "They have our phone numbers. They know where you live. Let's go have fun."

"Fun?" Stan repeated, suspiciously. "What kind of fun?"

"Let's sneak into a gay bar. You can get laid, I can find the chicks who go with their gay guy friends and hit on them. My chances will totally skyrocket."

"Let's not."

"Give me five good reasons why you're turning this offer down. Or did the main one just run off after our lard-ass?"

"Yeah. Yeah, he did. Happy?" Kenny frowned.

"Aw. Really?"

"Yeah." Stan kicked a can that had blown out of the recycling bin. Can kicking opportunities were rare here – thank you, hippies – but he took them when possible, and now a pretty can-kickable moment. "I'm totally into Kyle. Except not literally."

"Huh. Why not?"

"Because he's straight."

"If he's straight, I'm..." Kenny sought for a decent metaphor. He gave up. "He's totally not straight. He's always talking about you, trying to visit you, plotting insane ways to get you back..."

"Because he's my friend."

"Have you tried seducing him?" Kenny asked, clearly testing out a different track.

"Yes."

"And?"

"He was into it at first, then he wasn't. And no, we didn't get far."

"Maybe he doesn't like things up his ass?"

"We didn't get far, Kenny."

"Oh. Maybe you should have cut to the chase sooner. God knows he needs to get laid."

"You think everyone needs to get laid." Stan began ticking off on his fingers. "Cartman needed to get laid so he would stop hating everything. Then Bebe needed to get laid so she'd stop being mad about you wrapping her shoes in salami. Token needed to get laid so he'd stop doing so well in school..."

"Yeah, but Kyle really needs to get laid. Especially since you left. In fact, I kinda assumed you'd been fucking before that, because you wouldn't believe how tense and crabby he was afterwards-"

"-Because I'm his best friend and he missed me-"

"Okay, so why doesn't he go out with chicks? Bebe asked him to prom, Jen asked him if they wanted to go to a movie...there were probably other times, too. And he turns them down."

"Maybe he's just not interested in them?" Stan sagged onto a bench. "I don't know. But I know that he's not interested in me. And I'd rather that was because he doesn't like guys than because he just doesn't like me in that way, to be honest."

Kenny shrugged and sat down beside Stan. He stared off into the distance as Stan stared glumly at the ground.

"How far did you get?"

"Huh?" Stan looked up. Kenny was still looking away.

"How far did you get with Kyle? Making out?"

"Further."

"Blowjobs?"

"...not further. Uh. Lesser?"

"Well, that's further than anyone else has ever been with Kyle, right?"

"Kenny, there's no award for that."

"But still. Maybe he does wanna fuck you and just being a blushing, innocent little flower about it."

"What part of that sentence reminds you of Kyle, exactly?"

Kyle's phone rang in his pocket. Stan took it out, noting the unknown number, as Kenny sighed.

"Goddammit you actually swapped phones, you soppy bastards..." Stan shushed him and answered the phone.

"Hello?"

"Stan, it's me," Kyle gabbled. "We're in the police station. Can you bail me out? And never, ever mention this to my mom?" Kenny grabbed the phone.

"Sure, Stan'll do that-"

"-well, duh-" Stan interrupted.

"-but you have to make out with him for five minutes afterwards. Cartman has to watch."

"Sure. How quickly can you get here? We're sharing the cell with some anti-pollution protesters. Cartman is – HOLY SHIT HOW THE HELL DID YOU SMUGGLE THAT IN HERE?"

--0--

Bail paid, Cartman and Kyle were led out of their cell. Kyle looked angrier than Stan had seen him in months, his teeth gritted and fists clenched. Cartman also looked angry, but they'd already been told by the officer that he'd been pissed off about having his mini-mace taken away.

"What happened?" Stan asked, glaring at Cartman.

"Cartman tried to ruin a hippie convention. By filling it with foam. Since foam is artificial or some crap."

"It was the Organic Obsessives' Kindred Spirits Meeting. The foam wasn't organic. People died making that foam."

"Really?" Kenny asked, although he didn't look away from the redhead police officer at the front desk.

"Maybe."

"Uh huh. Kyle, you have a deal to complete."

"Oh, right. You want me to do that here?"

"What? What deal?" Cartman asked.

"Nah, let's get outside before lard-butt does any more damage." They left the building, Cartman casting glares at everything he passed.

"You do so much for the law, and it just bites you in the nuts."

"Like anyone could find your nuts under that belly, fat-ass," said Stan. He was going to continue (Cartman had just lost him about a hundred bucks which he really could have used on anything else) when he found himself pressed against a wall and his mouth being very pleasantly examined by Kyle's.

"Aw, sick!" Cartman shouted.

"I'm timing," Kenny said. Stan didn't look over to see if he really was.


End file.
